AMERICA  AND  & 


AMERICAN 


AMERICA  AND  THE  AMERICANS 


AMERICA  AND 
THE  AMERICANS 


FROM   A   FRENCH 
POINT    OF    VIEW 


SEVENTH  EDITION 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK      v      -.-      -.-      ...      1897 


COPYRIGHT,  1897,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


TO  

//  may  seem  strange  to  the  readers  of  some  of 
these  pages  that  I  dedicate  this  little  book  to  you, 
an  American — the  loveliest,  the  truest,  the  most 
competent  of  women,  worthy  to  wear  a  coronet  in 
any  country,  needing  none  in  your  own.  I  lay 
my  prejudices  as  a  Frenchman  at  your  feet.  Were 
all  your  countrywomen  like  you,  there  could  be  no 
happier  land  than  this. 


A  o 


America  and  the  Americans 

say,  a  succeeding  friendship  with  both  the 

above-mentioned  Secretary  and  his  wife  led 

us  to  the  discovery  that  a  certain  distant 

American     relative  of  Lafayette,  who  accompanied  him 

relatives*  ,  .  , 

on  his  second  voyage  to  the  New  World, 
saw  and  was  conquered  by  a  beautiful  Amer 
ican  whom  he  met  at  Newport,  and  after 
ward  married.  Hence  it  turned  out  that 
the  beautiful  Madam  R.  is  in  sooth  a  rela 
tive — very  distant — of  our  family. 

This  accounts  for  my  sister's  anxiety  to 
hear  more  in  detail  of  my  impressions,  first 
of  Madam  R.  (alas !  for  the  vanity  of 
women),  and  then  of  America  and  the 
Americans. 

As  I  had  affairs  of  importance  to  attend 
to  in  England,  I  went  first  to  England  and 
sailed  from  Liverpool  to  New  York  on  one 
of  Her  Majesty's  White  Star  line  of  steam 
ers,  But  one  travels,  I  should  think,  under 
English  auspices  only  when  one  cannot 
travel  protected  by  a  French  chef,  and 
made  comfortable  by  French  attendance. 
I  am  no  Anglophobist,  but  the  English 
cannot  make  coffee,  so  that  a  Frenchman 
has  no  breakfast ;  they  cannot  dress  salad, 


Liverpool  to  New  York 


h?nce  no  luncheon ;  they  cannot  make 
soup,  hence  an  ill-regulated  dinner.  As 
one  lives  but  to  eat  at  sea,  this  is  a  serious 
defect ;  and  though  Crecy,  Agincourt,  and 
Waterloo  are  suggestive  arguments  in  fa 
vor  of  English  meat  and  drink,  even  to  a 

....  /--IT  gastrono- 

Frenchman,  still  they  have  failed  to  con-  my. 
vince  me  in  favor  of  a  breakfast  for  a  glad 
iator,  a  luncheon  for  a  bull-dog,  and  dinner 
for  a  digestive  apparatus  run  by  electricity. 
It  was  a  disappointment  to  me  on  look 
ing  over  the  passenger-list  to  find  that 
most  of  my  fellow-travellers  were  not  Amer 
icans,  but  Germans,  or  so,  at  least,  such 
names  as  Arnheim,  Bethel,  Blumberger, 
Salzberg,  and  others  led  me  to  suppose. 
But  I  was  soon  to  discover  my  mistake.  In 
spite  of  the  fact  that  even  I  spoke  better 
English  than  most  of  the  other  frequenters 
of  the  smoking-room,  I  was  told  by  a  young 
gentleman  from  Boston  that  all  these  people 
with  the  strange  German  names  were  Amer 
icans.  He  told  me  also  to  take  a  tram-car 
ride  down  Broadway,  on  my  arrival  in 
New  York,  to  see  for  myself  to  what  a  dol 
orous  extent  that  great  city  had  become 

3 


America  and  the  Americans 

Semiticized.  These  loud  -  talking,  pool- 
selling,  pool-buying,  story-telling  denizens 
of  the  smoking-room,  who  spoke  broken 
English,  were,  as  he  had  affirmed,  Ameri 
cans. 

One  of  the  large  retail  shops  in  New  York, 
the  shop  which,  without  equal  courtesy  and 
business-like  methods,  attempts  to  do  for 
New  York  what  the  Bon  Marche  does  for 
Paris,  and  Whiteley's  for  London,  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  Jews.  These  people  are,  said 
my  young  friend,  the  banker,  from  Boston, 
the  Chinese  of  our  retail  trade.  And  surely 
one  has  only  to  read  the  signs  from  one  end 
of  Broadway  to  the  other  to  be  made  ac 
quainted  with  the  fact  that  the  Mosaic  de 
spoiling  of  the  Egyptians  goes  on  with  re 
newed  vigor  in  New  York  to-day. 

The  famous  New  York  cafe,  The  Del- 
monicos,  is  a  veritable  synagogue  at  the 
dinner-hour,  for  these  mongrel  Americans 
are  not  pcrsonce  grates  at  the  clubs,  and 
are  driven  to  congregate  in  restaurants. 
One  of  the  avenues  running  parallel  to  the 
Fifth  Avenue  is  almost  given  over  to  them 
as  a  place  of  residence,  and  I  was  told  that 


Liverpool  to  New  York 


it  is  a  favorite  amusement  of  certain  idle 
young  gentlemen  to  ride  in  the  horse-cars  on 
this  particular  avenue,  and  to  make  bets  as 
to  the  percentage  of  their  fellow-passengers 
who  between  any  two  given  streets  will  have 
straight  noses.  One  of  the  best-known 
monthly  magazines  is  in  their  hands ;  the 
minor  and  least  attractive  legal  business  of 
the  city  is  theirs  to  such  an  extent  that  rep 
utable  practitioners  have  more  than  once 
threatened  to  take  proceedings  against  their 
disreputable  methods,  and  the  newspaper  of 
the  largest  circulation,  and  of  the  most 
unsavory  reputation,  in  New  York,  is  also 
owned  by  a  Jew.  /They  are  so  numerous, 
and  control  so  much  money  and  so  many 
votes,  and  fight  for  one  another  so  unscru- 
pulously,  that  no  one  criticises  or  attacks 
them  openly,  though  on  all  hands  one  hears 
sneers,  innuendoes,  and  dislike  expressed. 
My  only  opportunity  for  judging  of  their 
good  or  bad  qualities  was  what  I  saw  and 
heard  in  the  smoking-room  during  the  voy 
age.  For  one  meets  them  socially  nowhere 
• — at  the  clubs,  in  society,  or  elsewhere. 
Of  the  score  or  more  whom  I  could  study 


America  and  the  Americans 


Cheap 
patriotism. 


"  Ich  weiss 
nicht  was 
soil  es  be- 
deuten  !  " 


at  leisure  on  the  steamer,  whether  they 
were  typical  or  not,  I  do  not  know.  They 
were  theatrically  American,  however  ;  much 
given  to  a  constant  display  of  cheap  pa 
triotism,  which  led  one  to  surmise  that  they 
were  themselves  a  little  self-conscious  about 
it,  and,  like  all  pretence,  theirs  revealed 
itself  in  awkwardness  and  exaggeration. 
I  was  told  later  by  an  ex -politician  that 
the  cheap  retail  business,  whether  com 
mercial,  theatrical,  legal,  or  journalistic, 
was  largely  in  the  hands  of  these  people. 
On  one  occasion  they  attempted,  in  the 
name  of  the  Germans  of  New  York,  to  foist 
a  statue — and  it  was  said  a  poor  one — of 
Heine  upon  their  good  -  humored  step 
brothers,  the  native  Americans,  but  this 
was  too  severe  a  test  of  their  influence,  and 
the  statue  was  declined.  As  a  foreigner  it 
struck  me  as  being  supremely  ridiculous 
that  the  statue  of  a  foreigner,  however 
eminent,  which  had  been  refused  by  three 
cities  of  his  native  land,  should  even  be 
suggested  as  appropriate  in  America.  But 
as  we  shall  see — or,  rather,  as  I  shall  say — 
all  through  these  pages,  the  good  -humor  of 
6 


Liverpool  to  New  York 

the  Americans  is  their  greatest  virtue,  and 
their  most  appalling  vice. 

If  these  people  were  not  fair  types  of  the 
American,  there  was  a  young  lady  on  board  An 
the  steamer  who  was,  I  was  informed,  typi 
cal  of  a  large  class  of  boarding-house,  sum 
mer-hotel  Americans.  She  was  of  that  V' 
wiry,  thin,  convex-back  and  concave-chest 
development  that  one  sees  frequently  in 
the  country  towns  of  America.  She  had  • 
bright  eyes,  a  tireless  tongue,  and  a  frank 
independence  of  manner,  which  would  have 
been  suspicious  in  a  Frenchwoman,  awk 
ward  in  an  Englishwoman,  and  impossible 
in  a  German  Backfisch,  though  in  her  own 
case  it  was  apparently  natural  enough.  In 
twenty-four  hours  she  knew  every  unat 
tached  man  on  board  the  ship,  and  had 
walked  and  chatted  with  most  of  them,  in 
cluding  myself.  She  was  protected  or 
abetted  in  her  promiscuous  independence 
by  her  father,  who  saw  her  only  at  meal- 
hours  in  calm  weather,  when  he  was  able 
to  be  about.  She  lounged  about  in  steamer- 
chairs  with  this  one  and  that,  and  was  often 
on  deck  alone  with  one  man  or  another  when 


America  and  the  Americans 


A  morose 
view  of  he* 


Difficulty 
of  this  rbl< 


all  the  other  female  passengers  had  retired. 
She  was  only  about  twenty  years  of  age, 
but  her  innocence,  or  her  experience,  or 
her  temperament,  seemed  a  sufficient  safe 
guard  for  her.  To  me  she  was  merely  a  cu 
riosity,  but  my  friend  from  Boston  sniffed 
at  her  from  afar,  remarking  that  she  rep 
resented  one  of  the  pests  of  American  civ 
ilization,  one  of  those  divorce-breeding,  and 
divorce-excusing,  women  who  are  bad  with 
out  vice,  and  good  by  the  grace  of  God>x 
Later,  during  a  tour  of  the  American 
summer-resorts  with  an  American  friend, 
the  son  of  one  of  New  York's  ex-mayors,  I 
saw  numbers  of  this  class  of  young  women. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  neither  Frenchmen 
nor  Englishmen  understand  them,  for  in 
France  only  a  woman  who  is  less  innocent, 
and  in  England  only  a  woman  who  is  more 
innocent,  could  play  this  role.  But  here 
such  an  one  is,  strange  to  say,  neither 
cocotte  nor  coquette.  She  aims  neither  at 
your  pocket  nor  at  your  heart.  She  per 
mits  every  liberty,  but  no  license,  and  owes 
her  existence  to  the  reckless  carelessness 
and  good-humor  of  the  American  parent, 


Liverpool  to  New  York 


and  to  a  certain  climatic  influence  which 
makes  for  sexlessness.  For  it  is,  indeed,  true  Tempera- 
that,  with  the  exception  of  the  Southern 
States,  there  is  a  steady  falling  off  in  the 
birth-rate  among  those  who  are  of  Ameri 
can  parentage  on  both  sides,  for  two  or 
more  generations  back;  so  I  was  told,  at 
least,  by  the  polite  and  intelligent  gentle 
man  who  is  at  the  head  of  the  Department 
of  Statistics. 

This  curious  phase  of  the  native  Ameri 
can's  physical  temperament,  and,  coupled 
with  it,  a  certain  strained  religious  senti 
ment,  make  possible  these  promiscuous  im 
proprieties,  which  here  result  harmlessly, 
but  which  in  any  other  country  would  cer 
tainly  entail  social  disasters. 

Nowhere  have  I  seen  or  heard  this  point  ^/ 
discussed — namely,  the  influence  of  the 
climate  upon  the  procreative  powers.  It 
may  well  be  that  this  terrible  climate,  with 
its  ninety-eight,  ninety-nine,  and  one  hun 
dred  degrees  in  the  shade  in  summer; 
and  in  some  parts  as  much  as  forty,  and 
even  more,  below  the  zero  point  in  winter, 
may  have  an  unlooked-for  effect  upon  the 


America  and  the  Americans 


increase  of  population.     When  the  tremen- 
chanxes  in    dons  immigration  of  foreigners  lessens,  and 
character-     the  population,  as  a  whole,  has  spent  half  a 
century  in  this  nervous  atmosphere,  there 
may  be,  to  the  amazement  of  the  statisti 
cians,   a  sudden   cessation  of  the  present 
enormous  yearly  increase  of  population. 

In  the  South,  where  the  factor  of  im 
migration  plays  a  less  prominent  part,  al 
ready  the  negroes  are  increasing  at  a  ratio 
of  more  than  two  to  one  faster  than  the 
whites.  New  York  is  no  longer  Dutch, 
though  only  one  hundred  years  ago  half 
the  signs  in  William  Street  were  in  Dutch, 
and  up  to  1764  no  sermon  in  English  had 
been  preached  in  any  of  the  three  Dutch 
churches. 

Delaware  is  no  longer  Scandinavian  and 
Norwegian ;  New  England  is  no  longer 
Old  England,  or  New  England,  but  French- 
Canadian  and  Irish,  and  not  long  ago  Bos 
ton  itself  had  an  Irish  Catholic  as  its 
mayor.  Whether  this  is  the  result  of  the 
enormous  immigration  —  the  increase  in 
population  during  the  ten  years,  1880-90, 
was  12,466,467 — or  owing,  in  part  at  least, 

10 


Liverpool  to  New  York 


to  the  growing  sterility  of  the  native-born 
Americans,  is  a  matter  that  concerns  ethni 
cal  students,  and  which  gains  nothing  from 
its  discussion  by  a  mere  curious  traveller 
like  me. 

Our  scientific  historian,  Taine,  would 
attribute  the  taciturnity  and  moodiness  of 
the  men  also  to  the  climate.  In  two  cen-  Effects  of 
turies  the  Puritans,  the  Cavaliers,  the  Hu-  * 
guenots,  and  the  Dutch,  have  grown  quite 
away  from  the  temperament  of  the  parent 
stocks.  The  American  is  voluble  enough, 
on  occasion,  as  is  the  American  Indian, 
but  the  salient  traits  of  the  Americans  to 
day  are  their  changeful  moods.  All  hope 
one  day,  all  discouragement  the  next.  Taci 
turn  and  frowning,  and  then  talkative  and 
nervously  jolly.  Some  of  the  men  who 
have  lived  for  a  long  time  in  the  West  are 
already  very  like  the  Indians  in  disposi 
tion  ;  and  even  in  the  East  a  serene  equa 
bleness  of  disposition  is  far  more-  rare  than 
among  the  men  of  Europe.  Climate,  en 
vironment,  call  it  what  you  will,  I  merely 
note  the  fact,  leaving  it  to  the  more  studi 
ous  to  explain. 

ii 


II 

First  Impressions  of  New  York 


depends    upon 
one»s  point  Of  view>     To  judge 

New    York  —  its    politics,    its 
social    life,   the   manners   and 
cultivation  of  its  people  —  from  the  level  of 
The  point      Paris  or  London  or  Amsterdam  or  Rome, 
is  to  come  to  one's  task  with  the  eyes  out 
of  focus. 

One  hundred  years  ago  the  population 
of  Philadelphia  was  32,205,  the  population 
of  Boston  was  14,640,  and  New  York  was 
a  small  Dutch  town  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Hudson  with  a  population  of  24,500. 
Scarcely  a  street  was  paved  ;  street-lamps 
were  sometimes  lighted  and  sometimes  not  ; 
at  the  hour  when  fashionable  dinners  begin 
now,  all  festivities  and  gayeties  were  over 
then,  and  the  cry  of  the  watchman,  "  Nine 
o'clock  and  all's  well,"  was  heard  ;  John 
Jacob  Astor,  whose  descendants  now  give 
12 


First  Impressions  of  New  York 

you  dinners  of  the  most  luxurious  descrip 
tion,  had  just  landed  in  New  York  with  his 
stock  of  violins ;  theatres  were  tabooed  as 
immoral ;  there  was  no  national  coinage, 
and  even  so  late  as  fifty  years  ago  the  small 
money  consisted  mainly  of  foreign  coins ; 
there  were  no  public  libraries  and  no  reading- 
rooms  ;  there  was  less  mail-matter  distrib-  A  century's 
uted  then  in  a  year  by  all  the  thirteen  States 
than  is  now  distributed  in  one  day  from  the 
New  York  Post-office  ;  a  man  who  had  been 
to  Europe  was  pointed  out  in  the  streets  as 
a  celebrity  ;  the  total  population  of  the  na 
tion  then,  it  is  estimated,  was  about  two  and 
a  half  millions,  now  it  is  seventy  millions  ; 
the  annual  cost  of  carrying  on  the  whole 
government  was  then  27,500,000  francs; 
in  1895  the  disbursements  for  pensions 
alone  were  704,796,805  francs,  paid  to 
almost  a  million  different  persons. 

These  and  many  more  facts  of  like  im 
port  should  be  in  possession  of  the  traveller  incomplete- 
when  he  begins  his  sight-seeing  in  New   "plained. 
York.     Then  the  newness  of  it  all;   the 
vulgarity  of  much  that  one  sees;  the  lack 
of  repose ;   the  thousand  and  one  details 

13 


America  and  the  Americans 

left  unattended  to;  the  sudden  fluctuations 
in  the  social  and  financial  world  ;  the  lack 
of  courtesy  among  all  the  servants,  public 
and  private,  and  the  lack  of  good  manners 
among  many  of  the  masters  ;  the  entire 
disregard  of  personal  liberty  and  of  indi 
vidual  rights  ;  the  strenuous  efforts  on  all 
hands  and  by  everybody  de  vouloir  tout 
regler,  excepte  eux-memes,  which  may  be 
said  to  be  a  national  characteristic — these 
features  of  this  civilization,  and  much  else 
besides,  are  judged  differently  if  you  bear 
in  mind  their  own  past,  and  do  not  at 
tempt  to  measure  them  by  the  thousand 
years  of  Paris  or  London,  Venice  or  Rome. 
For  the  first  glimpses  of  the  city,  as  you 
New  York  sail  into  its  glorious  harbor,  no  excuses 
are  needed.  Some  of  the  buildings  are  so 
high  that  they  look  like  attempts  of  Jack, 
of  the  bean-stalk  fame,  to  build  a  step- 
ladder  to  Heaven.  The  hard  glaring  light 
of  the  sun  brings  out  sharply  the  outlines 
of  the  hundreds  of  colossal  buildings  stand 
ing  where  one  hundred  years  ago  the  first 
Roosevelt  had  his  tanneries,  and  the  Lis- 
penard  meadows  were  a  favorite  resort  of 

14 


First  Impressions  of  New  York 

sportsmen,  and  land  was  sold  by  the  acre 
which  is  now  leased  by  the  square  foot.  It 
affronts  the  imagination.  Nowhere  else  in 
the  world  has  the  giant  of  material  progress 
worn  such  huge  seven-league  boots.  This 
is  impossible  in  the  life  of  little  more  than 
one  generation  of  men,  you  say,  as  you 
stand  on  the  deck  of  your  steamer,  but  in 
another  half  hour  you  are  disillusioned. 

You  land  on  a  rough  wooden  wharf; 
you  are  tumbled  about  and  tumbled  over 
by  men  who  speak  in  the  brogue  of  Ireland 
and  the  guttural  of  the  Vaterland ;  wagons 
and  men  and  horses  are  tangled  in  an 
inextricable  mass  outside  the  rough  shed ; 
you  are  bundled  into  an  ill-smelling  car 
riage  with  torn  upholstery,  which  creaks 
and  groans  as  it  is  bumped  along  over  the 
wretched  pavements,  drawn  by  two  Rosi- 
nantes  in  a  tattered  harness,  and  driven  by 
an  Irishman  who  throws  aside  his  cigar 
only  after  he  has  driven  a  block  or  two, 
and  whose  costume  is  made  up  from  the 
wreckage  of  a  bankrupt  livery-stable  and  a 
pawn-shop.  You  are  charged  fifteen  francs 
for  your  drive  of,  perhaps,  two  miles,  and 

15 


America  and  the  Americans 

one  franc  extra  for  each  piece  of  luggage, 
and  though  you  pay  peaceably  through 
the  nose,  your  coachman  expectorates  as 
he  gets  back  on  his  carriage,  with  never  a 
word  of  thanks,  or  a  touch  of  the  hat. 

Then  it  is  that  you  say,  "  Ah,  no,  this  is 
not  a  miracle,  this  is  still  a  frontier  settle 
ment  !  ' ' 

But,  alas !  for  one's  impressions.  You 
are  ushered  to  the  rooms  engaged  for  you 
by  your  friend  in  Washington  at  a  hotel 
in  Fifth  Avenue.  It  has  been  done  by 
telegraph,  but  in  a  moment  the  wharf 
and  the  hurly-burly  and  the  expectorat 
ing  Hibernian  are  forgotten.  There  are 
;  flowers  on  the  table,  there  is  a  bath-room 

tions.  .  .         . .  .  r 

done  in  tiles,  there  are  soft  carpets,  beauti 
ful  rugs,  tasteful  furniture,  and  the  Figaro, 
Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  and  Le  Petit  Jour 
nal,  cut  and  on  your  table.  The  hot 
water  pours  into  the  tub  in  a  torrent,  the 
soap  and  towels  are  of  the  best,  and  the 
breakfast,  of  fruit,  fish,  eggs,  and  coffee, 
which  follows  soon  after  the  bath,  is 
served  in  costly  porcelain.  I  am  the 
guest  of  my  friend  here  until  the  day  after 
16 


First  Impressions  of  New  York 

to-morrow,  which  is   the  earliest  moment 
he  can  get  away  from  Washington. 

I  am  a  Frenchman,  I  am  economical,  I 
look  no  gift-hur.se  in  the  mouth,  but  1 
cannot  refrain  from  wondering  what  this 
all  costs.  We  met  this  young  man,  my 
Bister  and  I,  in  Paris,  through  the  intro 
duction  of  my  friend  the  attache.  1 
father,  an  ex-mayor  of  the  city,  is,  they 

;i  very  rich  man — why  or  how  I  American 
know  not,  but  lucri  bonus  esf  <.-.L>r  <A  re 
qualibet — as  only  these  American  nabobs 
are  rich  in  these  days — rich  in  cash — not  in 
low-rent  paying  lands,  like  the  English,  or 
in  small -interest  bearing  rentes,  like  my 
poor  compatriots. 

i  with  us  in  the  country,  and  was 
my  guest  at  my  {xx>r  apartment  in  Paris, 
but  we  gave  him  nothing  like  unto  this. 

I  begin  to  regret  my  an-;cr  at  the  wharf,    Af 
my  annoyance  at  the  bumping-machine  in  Zf*£ 
which  I  was  conveyed  thence,  my  annihi-  ' 
lating  astonishment  at  the  coachman's  fare. 
Surely,  1  If,    that   momentary 

discomfort   v.  feature,  but   an   ac 

cident,  of  this  civilization. 


America  and  the  Americans 

I  begged  to  be  let  alone  to-day  and  to 
morrow,  therefore  I  dine  alone  in  the 
evening  down-stairs,  at  a  small  table,  in  a 
large  dining-room.  There  are  many  peo- 

Tyfes.  pie  about  in  all  sorts  of  costumes.  At  one 
table  are  two  gentlemen  ;  one  of  them  has 
a  sandy  chin-whisker  which  protrudes  al 
most  at  right  angles  from  his  chin ;  he 
and  his  friend  have  beefsteak,  ice-cream, 
and  champagne  for  their  dinner.  Not  a 
dozen  yards  away  is  a  party  of  four,  two 
gentlemen  and  two  ladies,  the  ladies  de 
collete  to  the  point  of  embarrassment,  and 
with  jewels  on  hands  and  neck,  and  in 
their  hair.  What  exaggeration,  I  think  to 

Extremes,  myself.  The  gentleman  of  the  aggressive 
chin-whisker  only  needs  spurs  and  a  som 
brero  to  be  of  the  prairies ;  while  the  la 
dies  only  need  a  little  rouge,  and  as  much 
off  the  length  of  their  skirts  as  they  have 
taken  off  their  shoulders,  to  be  of  the  erst 
while  Mabille. 

But  I  doubt  my  own  impressions  now, 
and  therefore  I  make  no  generalizations  of 
New  York's  manners,   customs,  and    cos 
tumes,  from  these  people,  who  may  not  be 
18 


First  Impressions  of  New  York 

Americans  at  all.  As  for  me,  my  own 
dinner  is  of  the  most  excellent,  et  rien  ne 
doit  der anger  f  honnete  homme  qui  dine. 

The  next  morning,  having  the  day  to 
myself,  I  remember  me  of  the  advice  of 
the  young  banker  from  Boston.  From  my 
hotel  to  Broadway  is  not  far.  At  the 
corner  of  the  street  I  determine  to  mount 
one  of  the  swift-passing  tram-cars.  They  Aneiectri- 
rush  by  me,  one  after  the  other,  bells  clang 
ing,  and  silhouette  figures  swaying  about 
inside.  I  hold  up  my  hand  in  vain.  As 
I  am  beginning  to  wonder  whether  they 
are  all  express-trains,  a  kindly  stranger 
touches  my  arm  and  says  :  "  You're  on  the 
wrong  corner,  my  friend.  They  only  stop 
on  the  farther  corner,  and  if  you  don't 
want  your  arms  jerked  out,  you'd  better 
mount  the  animal  where  he  proposes  to 
stop  !  "  I  turn  to  bow  my  thanks,  but  my 
stranger  takes  two  or  three  steps  and  a 
jump  away  from  me,  grasps  the  platform 
of  a  passing  car,  and  as  he  fades  away  in 
the  distance,  I  see  him  gesticulating  to  me 
to  move  down  to  the  lower  corner. 

He  was  right.     I  move  clown  a  few  steps, 

19 


America  and  the  Americans 

and  the  next  car  stops  in  front  of  me  with 
a  rumble  and  a  grating  noise,  which  I  af 
terward  learn  is  made  by  an  endless  cable 
under  the  street,  which  is  the  motive  power 
of  all  these  rushing,  clanging  caravans.  My 
particular  car  is  crowded  inside  and  out 
side.  Each  time  it  stops,  you  are  hurled 
id-  forward  and  then  back.  People  bending 
*  to  sit  down  as  the  car  starts,  place  their 
posteriors  anywhere  but  where  they  in 
tended,  and  not  infrequently  in  a  space 
already  occupied  by  another.  The  con 
ductor  and  the  passengers  come  and  go, 
over  your  feet,  jamming  your  legs  mean 
while;  women  at  the  far  end  of  the  car 
make  signs  at  the  conductor  to  stop,  in 
vain,  and  finally  elbow  and  shove  them 
selves  to  the  door,  hurtling  against  other 
passengers,  and  flung  now  and  then  into  the 
arms  of  those  sitting  down,  as  the  car 
stops,  or  starts,  suddenly. 

Not  far  from  where  I  got  on,  the  con 
ductor  shouts  something  into  the  car,  and 
What  New-  of  a  sudden  we  veer  around  a  curve  at  a 
^aif^        prodigious  rate  of  speed,  and  one  lady  who 

"cuyrve"       j^tf  ^QQn  cljngjng  to  a   strap  in  front  of  1116 

20 


First  Impressions  of  New  York 

is  whirled  round,  still  holding  to  the  strap, 
and  knocks  her  neighbor's  newspaper  into 
his  face,  and  dislocates  his  hat  with  the 
same  movement ;  while  two  men  who  had 
been  standing  in  the  door- way  are  shot 
into  the  car  as  from  a  catapult,  where  they  A  study™ 

,  T        •  acrobatics, 

are  stopped  short  by  those  clinging  to 
straps  in  the  passage-way. 

At  last  I  get  a  seat,  and  the  drama  that 
goes  on  about  me  interests  me  so  much 
that  I  continue  my  ride  as  far  as  Wall 
Street,  forgetting  all  about  my  intention  to 
read  the  signs  along  the  route. 

These  tram-cars  seem  to  be  gymnasiums 
on  wheels.  The  alertness  of  eye,  and  ner 
vous,  strained  look  of  the  thin  faces  and 
wiry  frames  about  me,  are  in  some  sort  ex 
plained.  Both  men  and  women  must  be 
sharply  and  constantly  watchful  if  they 
are  to  survive  a  daily  pilgrimage,  or,  bet 
ter,  a  daily  crusade  in  these  vehicles.  A 
second's  inattention,  a  moment's  respite 
from  the  dangling  leather,  which  hangs 
from  the  roof,  and  you  are  shot  into  some 
body's  back,  bosom,  or  belly,  or  sent 
sprawling  your  length  over  the  knees  of 

21 


America  and  the  Americans 

two   or   three   of    the   seated   passengers. 
There  is  little  bodily  harm  done,  but  there 
is  an  ever-recurring  succession  of  shocks  to 
the  dignity  and  to  the  nerves. 
American         The  most  remarkable  thing  about  it  all 

impertur-        .          , 

babiuty,  is,  that  no  one  seems  disturbed  or  greatly 
put  out  by  this  involuntary  riot  which 
takes  place  every  few  seconds. 

These   cars    are    owned   by   companies 
which  in  return  for  the  valuable  franchise 
of  the  use  of  the  principal  streets  in  the 
city,  promise  good  transportation  facilities 
at  a  cheap  rate.      They  do  it  in  the  hig 
gledy-piggledy  fashion  above  described. 
what  -we          In  France  such  infringement  of  the  rights 
\kinkifit    of  the  people  to  personal  comfort  and  per- 
*r**'    sonal  dignity,  if  persisted  in,  would  result 
in  revolution ;  and  in  London  one  day  of 
it  would  fill  the  next  day's  newspapers  with 
indignant  protests,  and  in  a  week's  time 
the  matter  would  be  under  the  control  of 
the  police. 

But  in  this  strange  republic  these  good- 
natured  people  are  slaves  to  every  conceiv 
able  form  of  political  and  financial  job 
bery,  and  no  one  protests.  It  may  be  the 

22 


First  Impressions  of  New  York 

land  of  freedom,  but  it  certainly  is  not  the 
land  of  freemen.  Personal  comfort,  per 
sonal  privacy,  the  right  to  go  and  come, 
and  to  live  as  one  prefers,  without  com 
ment,  and  even  without  newspaper  noto 
riety,  are  as  impossible  as  in  Russia,  or  in 
Armenia.  Each  one  is  so  taken  up  with 
his  own  and  somebody's  business  other 
than  his  own,  that  he  has  no  time,  and  no 
vigor,  left  to  defend  what  in  every  other 
civilized  country  are  deemed  to  be  the  most 
precious  personal  prerogatives. 

"  Why  does  no  one  protest  ?  M  I  say  to  Protests »» 
one  American  after  another.  It  is  useless, 
they  tell  me.  The  protestor  is  unpopular 
here.  There  are  too  many  people  inter 
ested  to  keep  the  people  slaves,  to  permit 
anyone  to  express  dissent.  The  news 
papers  tar  and  feather  such  a  one  with 
abusive  and  vituperative  rhetoric,  his 
friends  laugh  at  him,  and  all  those  who  are 
acquainted  with  him  hint  broadly  that  he 
is  of  an  irritable,  testy  disposition.  He  is 
told  that  he  had  better  take  up  his  resi 
dence  in  one  of  the  "effete  monarchies  of 
Europe,"  where  such  things  are  better  reg- 

23 


America  and  the  Americans 


Why  so 
•much 
A  tnericnt 
money  is 
spent  in 


ulated.  The  result  is,  that  while  Europe 
ships  her  gallows  birds,  paupers,  and  in 
competents  here,  and  the  commercial  coy 
otes  of  all  nations  swarm  in,  to  oust  the 
natives  from  their  rightful  gains,  represen 
tatives  of  three  or  four  of  the  wealthiest 
families  and  many  others  of  minor  social 
and  financial  repute,  are  living  more  and 
more  months  of  each  year  in  Europe,  and 
some  of  them  live  there  altogether.  It  is 
said  that  a  hundred  million  dollars,  and 
more,  are  spent  in  Europe  every  year  by 
Americans,  who,  as  the  years  go  by,  go 
more  often,  stay  longer,  and  spend  more. 
If  wealth,  privacy,  personal  comfort,  and 
personal  liberty  are  not  protected  here, 
those  who  wish  to  possess  them  in  security 
will  infallibly  go  elsewhere.  Sharp  and 
quick-witted  as  the  Yankee  is  reputed  to 
be,  he  has  not  seen  yet  even  the  mere 
commercial  disadvantages  of  permitting 
his  native  land  to  be  ruled  by  the  rough, 
to  the  extinction  and  the  ultimate  exclu 
sion  of  the  gentle. 

Thus  are  my  impressions  first   gained, 
and  then  rudely  contradicted.     It  seems 
24 


First  Impressions  of  New  York 

impossible  to  reconcile  such  experiences  as 
those  of  the  landing  in  New  York  and  the 
journey  in  the  tram-car  with  the  elegant 
comfort  and  convenience  of  the  hotel. 
The  one  set  of  experiences,  all  rough,  raw, 
and  lawless  ;  the  others  dominated  by  effi 
ciency  and  method. 

But  one  sees  at  last  the  solution  of  this 
problem  of  contradictions.  And  the  solu 
tion  is,  namely,  that  everything  requiring 
nicety  of  mechanical  means,  everything  Machinery 
that  can  be  done  by  steam  or  electricity,  £?«<£///.** 
or  gas,  or  by  harnessing  the  powers  of  nat 
ure,  is  done  well,  sometimes  superlatively 
well ;  while  anything  demanding  person 
al  service,  or  the  training,  discipline,  and 
courtesy  of  men  and  women  acting  as  ser 
vants,  in  either  a  high  or  low  capacity,  is 
done  meanly,  carelessly,  irresponsibly,  and 
without  any  sense  of  honorable  allegiance 
to  a  master. 

Here  again  it  is  forgotten,  not  only  by    The  point 
the  foreigner,  but  by  the  native  American 
as   well,  that   it   is  only  just  a  hundred 
years  ago  that  it  was  with  the  utmost  diffi 
culty  that  New  York  State  was  persuaded 

25 


America  and  the  Americans 

to  join  in  the  ratification  and  acceptance 
of  the  Constitution.  The  people  feared 
that  by  so  doing  they  would  lose  something 
of  their  independence.  This  spirit  is  still 
rampant  to-day,  and  nowhere  more  notice 
ably  so  than  among  the  ignorant  foreign 
element,  who,  escaping  from  the  tyranny 
of  their  own  incompetency  at  home,  make 
pretence  of  demanding  a  personal  liberty 
here,  which  results  only  in  lawlessness  and 
license. 

This  is  a  new  country.  Land  is  plenty 
and  cheap.  I  am  assured  that  no  industri 
ous,  sober,  and  honest  man  need  lack  the 
necessaries  and  ev<.  "  some  of  the  luxuries  of 
life.  But,  in  spite  of  this,  it  is  estimated 
strange  that  3,ooo,ooo  persons  are  supported  in 

prevalence  .      ,  .  , 

of  poverty,  whole  or  in  part  each  year,  and  at  a  cost  to 
somebody  of  250,000,000  francs  for  main 
tenance,  and  250,000,000  francs  in  loss  of 
productive  power.  In  this  great  State  of 
New  York  alone,  the  cost  of  dependent, 
defective,  and  delinquent  persons  is  over 
60,000,000  francs  per  annum. 

I  go  to  bed  thinking  that  civilization  by 
machinery  is  not  an  assured  success.     But 
26 


First  Impressions  of  New  York 

who  knows  !  In  this  country  of  anoma 
lies  and  contradictions,  I  may  go  to  bed  a 
week  hence  convinced  that  I  am  wrong. 

At  any  rate,  here  is  an  interesting  ex 
periment  in  government  and  in  social  life. 
There  are  no  slaves,  and  in  the  European 
sense — except  in  half  a  dozen  of  the  larger 
seaboard  cities — no  servants.  Every  man 
here  is  striving  to  be  his  own  master,  and 
consequently  most  of  them  must  be  their 
own  servants. 

In  the  Eastern  part  of  the  country  they 
are   already  struggling    with  the   illogical 
problem  :  How  can  your  political  equal  be   incipient 
your  social  or  domestic  inferior  ?    If  all  de-   Soctalt5m' 
serve  the  same  comforts  and  the  same  re 
spect,  who  is  to  black  the  boots  and  wash 
the  dishes  ?     Discontent  ripens  fast  in  this 
atmosphere,  and  no  wonder  !    During  every 
succeeding  political  contest  each  man   is   The  hood- 
crowned.     Between  the  political  contests  Z%%? 
the  crowns  are  hung  up  behind  the  door, 
but  the  sight  of  them  makes  men  wish  to 
wear  them  all  the  time.     An  effusive  re 
ception  awaits  the  political  prestidigitator 
who  promises  to  juggle  all  the  hewers  of 
27 


America  and  the  Americans 

wood  and  carriers  of  water  into  perpetual 
crown-wearers  !  Alas  for  the  republic  when 
such  a  trickster  appears  !  He  will  probably 
be  voted  down  the  first  time,  but  he  will 
inevitably  reappear. 


Ill 

Social  Side  of  New  York 

-DAY  my  New  York  friend  ar 
rives  from  Washington.  He 
has  written  of  his  plans  for 
me  for  the  next  few  days.  They 
include  luncheons,  dinners,  the  opera,  and 
three  dances.  Verily,  they  entertain  au 
galop,  these  good  Americans. 

First  I  lunch  with  him  at  a  club  on 
Fifth  Avenue.  He  tells  me  it  is  mostly 
frequented  by  the  younger  set  of  men,  and  some  young 
I  meet  half  a  dozen  of  them.  It  is  the  Yorkers 
fashion  now,  he  tells  me,  to  be  rather  ag 
gressively  American  here.  I  am  not  made 
aware  of  this,  however,  by  their  conversa 
tion.  Perhaps  they  suit  their  after-lunch 
eon-cigarette  chat  to  what  they  deem  to 
be  my  taste  rather  than  theirs.  Certainly 
they  are  profusely  hospitable,  and  alto 
gether  at  my  service,  and  among  the  most 
agreeable  is  a  brother-in-law  of  Madam 
29 


America  and  the  Americans 

R.,  whom,  he  tells  me,  I  shall  meet  to 
night  at  the  opera. 

The  conversation  is  much  that  of  idle 
men  all  over  the  world.  I  remark  upon 
this  cosmopolitanism  to  my  friend,  who 
hints  rather  broadly  that  this  apparent  de 
tachment  of  mind  is  assumed  for  my  ben 
efit,  and  thereupon  describes  some  of  the 
men  more  in  detail.  One  is  the  editor  of 
a  magazine  which  is  much  given  to  articles 
by  English  noblemen,  but  a  very  good 
magazine  withal,  two  or  three  numbers  of 
which  I  have  since  read.  Another  is  in  a 
large  banking-house  downtown,  and  comes 
up  to  luncheon  at  the  request  of  my  friend. 
and  their  Still  another  is  the  son  of  a  man  who 

ancestors. 

twenty-five  years  ago  was  an  unknown  law 
yer  in  a  Western  country  town  ;  to-day  he 
is  the  confidential  attorney  of  several  great 
financiers,  and  his  son  is  an  amiable  idler. 
Another  married  a  daughter  of  one  of  the 
two  great  millionnaire  households  here,  and 
spends  her  money  with  eccentric  lavish- 
ness.  Another  is  the  grandson  of  a  Scotch 
weaver  who  introduced  a  process  of  carpet- 
making  that  has  built  up  one  of  the  great- 

30 


Social  Side  of  New  York 


est  businesses  in  New  York.  Another  is 
the  son  of  a  Western  man  who  made  mill 
ions  by  the  invention  and  exploitation  of 
a  machine  for  cutting  wheat.  The  father 
of  another  discovered  a  process  for  coating 
pills,  and  his  family  mounts  the  golden 
stair  of  social  prominence  pellet  by  pellet. 

I  cannot  understand  how  it  is  that  cer 
tain  American  critics  sneer   at   this,  and 
love  to  point  out  the  grandfatherlessness  of  The  charm 
New  York's  social  life.     To  me  it  is  as  a  '£g%n 
dream,  as  an  incitement  to  ambition,  as  a  a 
magnificent  social  panorama  gilded  by  the 
commercial  prowess  of  vigorous  men. 

As  we  leave  the  club  one  of  these  young 
men  points  across  the  way,  and,  as  he  says 
"  good-by,"  tells  us  he  is  going  for  a 
shave.  The  phrase,  "  going  for  a  shave,"  "Going for 
catches  my  ear  ;  I  am  soon  enlightened. 
These  correct  and  well-dressed  young  men, 
many  of  them,  are  shaved  each  day  by  a 
public  barber.  Some  days  later  I  go  to 
the  same  shop  to  have  my  hair  cut,  and 
there  I  see  rows  of  small  porcelain  cups 
with  the  names  of  their  owners  in  gilt  let 
ters  upon  them.  Some  of  the  names  are 


America  and  the  Americans 

those  of  men  whom  I  have  already  met. 
Young  gentlemen  come  in,  take  off  their 
collars  and  neck-cloths,  and  their  faces  are 
daubed  with  soap  and  rubbed  by  the  hands 
of  the  barber  and  shaved.  They  are  then 
wiped  off  with  a  towel,  powdered,  and, 
without  any  further  ablutions  on  their  part, 
they  go  thence  to  make  love,  or  to  kiss 
their  wives  or  their  children,  for  all  I 
know.  This  seems  to  me  horribly  dirty, 
and  painfully  disagreeable.  Many  men,  I 
am  told,  never  complete  their  toilet  at 
home  in  the  morning,  but  are  shaved  down 
town  each  morning.  Their  faces  are  pawed 
and  patted  and  powdered  by  a  negro,  a 
German,  or  an  Italian,  and  so  left  for  the 
day. 

As  I  sit  at  dinner  in  the  evening  at  the 
table  of  the  weaver's  son,  I  cannot  forbear 
wondering  how  many  of  the  gentlemen 
present  were  shaved  by  Germans,  how 
many  by  Irishmen,  how  many  by  Italians, 
and  so  on. 

The  dinner  is  a  very  sumptuous  affair, 
with  flowers  in  profusion — indeed  flowers 
are  bought  and  sold  and  seen  here  as  in 

32 


Social  Side  of  New  York 


no  other  city  in  the  world,  the  roses  are 
more  beautiful  than  any  I  have  ever  seen 
elsewhere,  and  cost,  I  am  told,  at  certain 
seasons  of  the  year,  fabulous  prices. 

We  are  to  go  from  dinner  to  the  opera, 
hence  the  ladies  are  in  gala  costumes.   The 

hostess  actually  wears  a  crown  of  diamonds  An  Ameri 
can  coronet. 

on  her  head,  and  though  none  of  the  others 
wears  so  conspicuous  an  ornament,  still 
the  display  of  jewels  is  imposing.  But  the 
crown  keeps  catching  my  eyes,  dazzling 
them  and  my  understanding  at  the  same 
time.  "  Who  is  this  lady?  Is  she  a  for 
eigner  ? ' '  I  ask  of  my  friend  as  soon  as  we 
are  alone.  No,  I  learn  that  she  is  far  from 
being  a  foreign  aristocrat.  Indeed  it  is 
only  within  the  last  ten  years  that  she  has 
been  known,  even  in  New  York's  more  ex 
clusive  circle.  She  married  a  rich  man, 
who  has  grown  richer  in  trade,  and  she 
has,  by  natural  diplomacy  and  by  not 
stickling  at  the  quality  of  some  of  the  at 
tention  shown  her,  risen  to  her  present 
position.  She  is  certainly  very  charming, 
and  her  affairs  are  not  my  business,  though 
from  the  stories  that  are  offered  me  about 

33 


America  and  the  Americans 

her  at  intervals  during  my  stay,  her  affairs 
seem  to  have  been  the  business  of  a  good 
many. 
Leanings          Though  this  is  SL  republic,  though  I  read 

towards  •         •,  •,.,... 

aristocra-  in  the  papers  each  morning  abusive  tirades 
on  English  ways  and  English  customs 
and  English  noblemen,  I  recall  that  after 
Washington  was  made  President,  there  was 
immediately  a  long  and  wordy  wrangle  in 
the  new  congress  in  regard  to  the  title  he 
was  to  bear. 

Evidently  some  of  these  rather  boastful 
republicans  still  hunger  for  the  flesh-pots 
of  the  titled  Egyptians.  In  one  of  the 
large  jeweller's  shops  there  is  a  special  de 
partment  of  Heraldry,  if  you  please,  where 
these  republicans  have  coats-of-arms  put 
together  for  them. 

At  the  door  of  the  opera-house,  on  coming 

out,  I  see  scores  of  liveried  men-servants, 

some  of  them  with  cockades  in  their  hats, 

and  on  harnesses  and  carriage-doors,  verily, 

Thefts         I  see   crests   and    coats-of-arms,    some   of 

Htrtud't      them    too   big   even    for   real    noblemen. 

office.  pm^  Mrg    gharp^  Mfs    Green>  Mrg    White> 

Mrs.  Black,  Mrs.  Jones, — pray,  where  did 
34 


Social  Side  of  New  York 


ure  of  stars 

andgar- 


your  right  to  the  coronet,  the  crest,  and 
the  coat-of-arms  come  in  ?      Do  you  even 
know  what  the  various  symbols,  signs,  and 
figures  mean  ?     I  have  my  doubts,  truly  ! 
It  is  surely  an  American  idea  that  pellets, 

-  ,  -,         i      i   • 

or  carpets,  or  furs,  or  ready-made  clothing, 
or  reaping-machines,  or  dry-goods,  or  pat 
ent  medicines,  or  tea,  or  sugar,  or  hides, 
or  railroad  bonds,  carried  to  the  nth  power, 
confer  patents  of  nobility  on  their  posses 
sors  or  their  legatees.  But  how  else  can 
these  people  have  any  right  to  them?  And 
why,  oh,  why,  do  they  want  them  at  all  ? 

And  there  are  titles,  too,  yes,  titles  galore, 
among  these  boastful  republicans.  At  the 
little  luncheon-party  one  young  man  was 
invariably  addressed  as  "General,"  and 
another,  who  lives  on  his  wife's  money  and 
other  people's  ideas,  was  called  "Colonel." 
They  had  been  on  somebody's  staff,  I  was 
told  in  explanation. 

Even  the  newspapers  are  punctilious  in  Punctn- 
their   bestowal    of    titles.       "The    Hon.   JTSS?. 
Patrick  Divver  "  did  this,  "  ex  -Attorney- 
General  So-and-so  "  did  that  ;   "  President 
Jones"  said  this,  "ex-Secretary  of  the  In- 

35 


America  and  the  Americans 


Highfalu- 
tin  nomen 
clature. 


Secret  love 
of  titles. 


terior"  said  that;  "Colonel  J."  and 
" General  H."  and  "Governor  X.'  'and 
"His  Excellency  the  Governor  of  M." 
and  "ex-Boss  C."  and  "Doctor  Y." — all 
clergymen  are  given  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Divinity,  I  notice — and  "  Professor  N." 
have  arrived  at  such  and  such  an  hotel. 

Then  these  good  plain  people  have  so 
cieties  without  number.  There  are  Officers 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  Comrades  of  the 
Grand  Army,  Sons  of  the  Revolution, 
Knights  of  Pythias,  Daughters  of  the  Revo 
lution,  Colonial  Dames,  Societies  of  the 
Dutch,  Societies  of  New  England,  the  South 
ern  Society,  and  how  many  more  I  know 
not.  Then  each  of  these  has  its  ribbon  or 
its  button  or  its  badge,  and  in  no  country 
in  Europe  do  you  hear  so  many  titles,  or 
see  so  many  insignia  worn. 

This  is  all  very  pretty  fooling,  and  harm 
less  enough  were  it  frank  and  outspoken. 
But  it  is  not.  These  same  people  toady  to 
foreign  noblemen  as  do  no  other  people  in 
the  world.  Politically  they  are  loud,  blat 
ant  even,  in  the  reiteration  of  their  repub 
licanism  ;  but  socially  they  are  tuft-hunters,  y 

36 


Social  Side  of  New  York 


not  to  say  flunkeys  of  the  most  pronounced 
type.  I  am  a  Frenchman,  one  of  my  an 
cestors  was  beheaded  in  the  revolution,  but 
I  am  a  republican.  Locked  away  in  our 
poor,  tumbled-down  chateau  are  ribbons,  Faded 
crosses,  buttons,  and  swords  won  and  worn  gory' 
by  men  who  bore  my  name  when  the  great 
Louis,  who  could  not  write  his  own  name, 
was  putting  the  first  wedge  in,  that  was  at 
last  to  tumble  the  monarchy  to  the  ground. 
The  young  friend  with  whom  I  have  just 
been  lunching  will  tell  you  as  much.  But 
Dieu  m^ en  garde  from  all  this  sham  aristo 
cracy,  from  all  this  frippery  and  foppery  of 
nobility  in  a  republic. 

Some  of  the  titles  bestowed  upon  differ 
ent  officers  of  these  organizations  I  have 
mentioned,  out-do  even  the  ascriptions  to 
the  Almighty  by  a  negro  preacher  at  a  camp- 
meeting.  And  worse  yet.  Do  we,  some 
of  us,  of  older  nations  laugh  at  the  rudeness 
and  awkwardness  of  democratic  manners?  Ungenerous 
What  then  is  to  be  said  of  these  people  in  criticism' 
the  East  who  laugh  and  sneer  at  the  un 
sophisticated  manners  of  their  own  brethren 
who  dwell  west  of  the  Mississippi  and  the 

37 


America  and  the  Americans 


French  po 
liteness. 


A  merican 
chivalry  to 
•women. 


Rocky  Mountains?  Certain  Western  men 
came  on  to  New  York,  while  I  was  there, 
to  start  a  Western  Mining  Exchange.  The 
local  newspapers  made  fun  of  the  costumes 
of  their  wives  and  sisters,  gave  exaggerated 
illustrations  of  the  costumes  of  the  men, 
and  were  positively  hilarious  over  their 
simple  luncheon,  their  awkward  manners, 
and  their  inelegant  diction. 

If  the  Paris  press  treated  a  party  of  tour 
ists  from  Lyons  or  Marseilles  in  this  fash 
ion,  well-bred  Frenchmen  would  stare  and 
stammer,  in  amazement  and  disgust,  when 
they  opened  their  newspapers.  Fancy  put 
ting  the  wives  and  sisters  of  your  own 
countrymen,  from  another  part  of  the  coun 
try,  into  the  pillory  of  newspaper  carica 
ture  !  These  same  editors,  too,  offer  their 
columns  as  rewards  to  those  who  can  lift 
them  and  their  wives  into  the  social  swim. 
They  pay  this  one,  and  that,  for  articles, 
and  in  return  expect  to  be  invited  to  din 
ners  and  drawing-rooms ! 

I  had  heard  much  of  the  American  chival 
ry  to  women — of  how  they  could  walk  the 
streets  and  travel  alone.  Let  us  be  frank 

38 


Social  Side  of  New  York 


and  say  that  it  is  all  nonsense !  The 
newspapers  make  free  with  the  names  of 
ladies,  and  drag  wives  and  mothers  and 
sisters  into  the  shambles  of  every  politi 
cal  controversy,  every  social  contretemps. 
While  among  the  better  classes,  in  their 
clubs  and  drawing-rooms,  one  hears  hints, 
scandals,  innuendoes,  and  stortes — and 
most  of  them  about  the  ladies  in  their 
own  circle — such  as  would  prepare  the 
way  for  a  dozen  duels  a  week  in  my  own 
country. 

The  most  shamelessly  shocking  periodi 
cal  that  it  has  ever  been  my  misfortune  to 
read,  is  published  in  New  York  each  week. 
It  devotes  itself  openly  to  the  libellous  and 
the  licentious.  The  names  of  "society" 
people  are  to  be  found  in  almost  every 
paragraph,  and  the  most  prurient  details 
of  every  known,  or  suspected,  scandal  are 
blazed  forth  to  the  world  in  its  pages. 
Our  most  suggestive  pictorial  French 
papers,  highly  seasoned  and  colored  though 
they  be,  are  as  the  Gospels  to  Rabelais,  when  Ribald 
compared  with  this  sheet — wherein  jokes 
about  ladies'  underclothing,  with  the  ladies' 

39 


America  and  the  Americans 

names  printed  in  full,  are  sometimes  a  feat 
ure  of  its  lascivious  ribaldry  —  and  yet 

one  society  nobody  is  shot  !  There  are  societies  for 
the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  children,  for 
the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals,  for 
the  prohibition  of  intemperance,  for  the 
relief  of  the  poor,  for  the  prevention  of 
the  sale  of  obscene  literature — societies,  in 
deed,  without  number,  for  the  amusement 
of  the  rich  at  the  expense  of  the  poor,  but 
no  men  and  women  strong  enough  to 
prevent  this  hebdomadal  debauch  of  every 
body's  morals  who  has  ten  cents  to  spend. 
All  these  political  and  social  and  moral 
contradictions  and  anomalies  are  amus 
ing  to  me,  but  if  I  be  not  mistaken  they 
portend  dire  results  in  the  near  future  to 
this  confident,  and  not  infrequently  arro 
gant,  republic.  I  could  wish  it  were  other 
wise.  Every  Frenchman  wishes  it  were 

A  French-     otherwise.     For  "on  aime  quelqu?  un  toujours 

man's  view  .      _ 

if  it.  centre  quelqu  un,    and  no  country  in  Europe 

would  be  so  directly  affected  by  the  failure 
of  republican  manners  and  institutions  here 
as  we  should  be.  For  the  anti -republican 
countries  all  about  us,  Germany,  England, 
40 


Social  Side  of  New  York 


Austria,  and  Italy,  would  point  a  moral 
and  adorn  a  tale,  for  the  benefit  of  republi 
can  France,  should  republican  institutions 
founder  and  fail  in  America. 


IV 

Public  and  Private  Functions 

[E  were  going  to  the  opera,  when 
I  forgot  the  opera  in  remember 
ing  other  things.  Once  there, 
it  is  a  brilliant  scene.  In  these 
The  opera,  matters,  as  in  their  fine  buildings  and  their 
sumptuous  hotels,  this  nation  has  caught 
up  in  the  race  with  Europe.  Music,  scen 
ery,  and  singing  are  of  the  best,  and  the 
audience,  if  anything,  is  even  more  gor 
geously  gowned  and  bejewelled  than  in 
Paris  or  London,  and  far  more  so  than  at 
a  similar  affair  in  poor  bankrupt  Rome,  or 
even  in  St.  Petersburg.  If  the  precious 
stones  and  laces  are  what  they  look  to  be, 
these  Americans  must  spend  fortunes  upon 
their  women. 

Madam  R.  is  not  in  her  box  until  late, 
but  at  last  I  am  presented  to  her.     She 
laughs  good-naturedly  at  dear  Fifine's  anx 
iety  to  have  a  description  of  her,  and  bids 
42 


Public  and  Private  Functions 

me  come  to  see  her  out  of  town,  some 
where  on  the  Hudson  River,  where  she 
has  her  home.  She  hopes  that  if  I  am  to 
describe  her,  I  am  not  intending  to  publish 
my  diary-notes.  I  reply  that  I  am  incapa 
ble  of  writing  a  book,  even  though  I  wished 
to  do  so.  She  tells  me  that  Bourget's 
book  was  of  small  value,  because  most  of 
his  impressions  seem  to  have  been  filtered 
through  a  Boston  and  Newport  filter  before 
they  were  printed.  "And,  you  know," 
she  adds,  ( '  Boston  is  no  longer  America  !  ' ' 

I  stroll  about  downstairs,  and,  among 
other  things,  I  notice  that  each  programme 
has  on  it  a  numbered  list  of  private  boxes, 
and  opposite  the  numbers  the  names  of 
the  occupants.  As  each  box  in  the  house 
is  plainly  numbered  on  the  printed  plan, 
this  makes  it  possible  for  everyone  with  a 
programme  to  identify  the  people  in  the 
boxes. 

I  understand   less  and   less  this  practi 
cally  universal  desire  to  exploit  one's  self,  to  Seifadver- 
reveal  one's  identity  even  at  the  opera,  to  * 
have  one's  name  in  the  papers,  to  have  one's 
likeness    published.     Whether    it   be   the 

43 


America  and  the  Americans 

levelling-down  process  in  a  democracy 
which  makes  everyone  eager  in  conse 
quence  to  boost  his  head  and  shoulders 
up  over  the  average  line,  or  the  lack  of 
social  confidence  and  security  in  people 
who  have  no  well-defined  classes,  so  that 
each  one  feels  it  incumbent  upon  him  to 
assert  himself  always,  and  everywhere,  I 
am  not  sure ;  but  whatever  be  the  cause  of 
this  evident  love  of  publicity,  the  result  is 
very  bourgeois  indeed. 

In  every  civilization  of  any  age,  it  is  the 
desire  of  pretty  much  everybody  to  shield 
Privacy        his  life  and  that  of  his  family,  and  to  live 
"ity.  *"     '    part  of  the  time,  at  least,  quite  on  one  side 
of  the  roar  of  the  business,  social,  and  politi 
cal  torrent.     A  small  house  away  from  the 
crowd    is   more    highly  esteemed    than  a 
large  house  in  the  crowd.     In  short,  only 
those  who  cannot  avoid  it  live  all  the  time 
in  the  ruck  of  people. 

But  it  is  quite  different  here.  The  popu 
lation  of  the  great  cities  increases  enor 
mously  every  year.  I  was  told  by  a  well- 
known  worker  at  the  social  problems  of 
New  York  the  figures  which  give  the  pro- 

44 


Public  and  Private  Functions 

portion  of  the  people  of  New  York  City 
who  live  in  hotels,  boarding-houses,  and  Boarding- 
tenements,  and  one  is  amazed  at  the  num-  ketcU. "'' 
ber.  From  these  figures  —  I  regret  not 
having  them  here  in  Paris,  but  as  I  jotted 
down  notes  from  day  to  day  in  America,  I 
had  not  the  smallest  intention  of  using 
them  in  this  way — I  remember  that  it  ap 
peared  that  only  a  very  small  percentage  of 
the  people  live  in  separate  dwelling-houses. 
Even  people  whose  incomes  permit  it,  pre 
fer  to  live  in  hotels  rather  than  in  small 
houses  of  their  own  in  the  suburbs. 

This  is  a  sure  sign  of  a  superficial  people, 
and  of  a  thin  culture,  for  it  is  the  mark  of 
the  uncultivated  to  be  uneasy  and  discon 
tented  away  from  the  crowd,  just  as  it  is 
the  mark  of  a  more  happy  breeding  to  be 
discontented,  if  one  is  forced  by  circum 
stances  to  be  forever  in  it. 

This  straining  to  make  one's  self  conspic 
uous  is  apparent  not  only  in  the  numer 
ous  likenesses  and  the  columns  of  person 
al  paragraphs  in  the  newspapers,  but  it  is  Newspaper 
evinced  by  the  startling  extravagance  of  * 
dress  not  only  in  public  places,  but  in  the 

45 


America  and  the  Americans 

shops  and  on  the  streets.  Velvets,  furs, 
laces,  jewels,  may  be  seen  on  the  streets 
and  in  the  tram-cars,  morning,  noon,  and 
night  of  every  day.  The  ladies  whom  I 
saw  at  the  opera  in  all  the  brilliancy  of 
court  costumes  are  to  be  met  with — they 
or  their  sisters  of  less  social  distinction — 
on  the  streets  in  costumes  which,  if  less 
brilliant  as  to  color,  are  no  less  costly  as  to 
texture  and  variety  of  fabric. 

It  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  know  the 
streets  of  Rome,  Paris,  London,  St.  Peters 
burg,  Amsterdam,  and  Vienna,  but  there  is 
nothing  approaching  to  the  display  of  fine 
ra^ment  tnere  tnat  one  sees  in  New  York. 
dress.  What  would  my  French  friends  think  of  a 

lady  walking  to  and  from  church  in  a  cos 
tume  composed  entirely  of  fur — jacket  and 
skirt  as  well ;  of  another  in  velvet,  draped 
profusely  with  lace,  and  a  bonnet  of  jet  with 
pink  and  white  plumes,  and,  were  I  a  mo 
diste,  I  could  enumerate  many  more  which 
struck  my  unaccustomed  eye  as  being  equal 
ly  extravagant  and  in  equally  bad  taste. 

When  I  pointed  out  to   two  Americans, 
with  whom  I  was  walking,  this  ostentatious 
46 


Public  and  Private  Functions 

finery  worn   by  so  many  women   on  the 
streets,  I  asked  to  what  class  they  belonged, 
and  how  they  lived  at  home.    They  told  Lack  of 
me  that  a  fair  proportion  of  them  were  Jew-  ^"me** ' 
esses,  and  that  many  more  of  them  were 
people  who  lived  in  boarding-houses  and 
hotels,  and  others,  people  who  lived  on  a 
very  small  scale  at  home,  with  one,  two, 
or  three  servants  in  their  households.     The 
sole  social  recreation  of  many  of  them  is 
this  parading  of  the   streets,  visiting  the   Display 
theatres,  and  invading  the  shops. 

There  is  a  large  middle  class  here,  the  men 
of  which  are  busy  from  morning  till  night,  \/ 
and  weary  when  they  reach  home.  They 
have  little  social  experience,  and  hence 
they  find  even  the  most  elementary  social 
duties  irksome ;  the  consequence  is  that 
most  of  their  women-folk  are  left  to  them 
selves  for  social  diversion,  and  they  take  it  in 
its  more  barbaric  forms  only.  The  dinner- 
giving  and  dinner-going,  which  is  so  prev 
alent  here  among  a  certain  class,  is  largely 
confined  to  that  class.  This  very  common 
form  of  hospitality,  even  in  the  country 
towns  of  England,  and  among  our  large 

47 


America  and  the  Americans 

middle  class  in  France,  is  narrowed  down 
to  a  few,  comparatively  speaking,  here. 
This  is  owing  to  the  lack  of  knowledge  in 
such  matters  of  the  great  majority,  and  to 
the  scarcity,  and  abnormally  high  wages, 
of  trained,  or  even  untrained,  servants. 
Social  in-  One  might  live  a  long  time  in  London, 
experience.  GI[  .n  parjs?  before  seeing  a  guest  at  a  twelve- 
o'clock  wedding  in  his  evening  clothes — 
unless  he  were  a  French  official  appearing 
in  his  official  capacity,  as  the  President  of 
the  Republic  at  the  races  for  example — but 
I  saw  this  social  gaucherie  at  a  wedding 
here.  There  is  much  latent  ignorance  of 
this  kind,  which  seldom  reveals  itself,  be 
cause  its  victims  take  pains  to  avoid  appear 
ing  where  they  know  they  are  on  unsafe 
ground. 

This  lack  of  social  training  and  social 

experience — though  there  is  no  lack  of  so- 

Great  social  cial  aptitude,  for  I  defy  Europe  to  produce 

aptitude.       more  charming  hostesses  than  half  a  dozen 

women  I  could  name  here,  who  I  am  told 

had  been  nowhere,  seen  nobody,  and  had 

nothing,  until  of  a  sudden,  marriage,  or  the 

"  ticker  "  in  Wall  Street,  or  an  oil-well,  or 

48 


Public  and  Private  Functions 

a  mine,  landed  them  at  their  opportunity 
with  overflowing  purses — make  even  the 
more  common  forms  of  social  intercourse 
comparatively  rare,  rare  indeed  to  an  ex 
tent  I  was  unprepared  for. 

Thousands  and  thousands  of  families  in 
even  the  larger  cities  of  America,  having 
an  income  amply  sufficient,  never  dress  in  Artificial 

,      .       social  life. 

the  evening,  never  serve  wine  on  their 
tables,  never  have  a  dinner  served  in  courses, 
a  la  Russe,  when  by  themselves,  and  never 
attempt  to  have  their  friends  to  dinner 
without  calling  in  the  men,  the  means,  and 
the  menu  from  a  restaurant.  This  makes 
life  rather  arid  for  the  women. 

But  to  me  the  sadder  side  of  it  is,  what 
I  have  noted  in  other  departments  of 
American  life,  the  undemocratic  phase  of 
it.  These  people  are  not  willing  to  be 
themselves,  to  dine  out,  and  to  have  others  Lack  of  s 
to  dine,  to  entertain,  and  to  be  entertained, 
in  a  manner  suitable  to  their  modest  means. 
They  live  meanly,  that  they  may  dress  ex 
travagantly  on  the  street,  and  from  time  to 
time  entertain  on  a  scale  that  is  utterly  un 
related  to  their  everyday  life.  I  know  hun- 

49 


America  and  the  Americans 

dreds  of  menages  in  France,  and  some  score 
or  more  in  England  and  Italy — ah,  how 
often  I  have  been  told,  sometimes  twitted 
with  the  remark,  that  we  have  no  word  for 
1  'home"  in  French,  until  I  have  been 
tempted  to  reply  :  "  Thank  Heaven,  no 
such  word,  and  no  such  place,  as  is  repre 
sented  by  that  word  here,  in  many  cases  " 
— where  one  goes  home  every  night  to  a 
pleasant  little  dinner,  quite  suitable  to  be 
served  to  one  or  two  friends,  should  they 
appear,  and  where  the  proprietors  have  less 
than  30,000  francs  a  year.  I  dare  affirm 
that  it  would  be  impossible  to  find  a  pro- 
protionate  number  here  among  people  of 
the  same  income. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  number  of  so- 
din-  called  public  dinners,  where  men,  in  num 
ber  from  twenty-five  to  five  hundred,  meet 
to  dine  together,  and  to  hear  speeches  as 
they  smoke  and  drink  afterward,  is  greater, 
far  greater  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world. 
The  Irish  dine;  the  Germans  dine;  the 
English  dine ;  the  Scandinavians  dine ; 
men  from  all  the  States  and  territories  of 
the  Union  resident  in  New  York,  dine  to- 


Public  and  Private  Functions 

gather ;  the  graduates  of  all  the  different 
colleges  dine;  the  bankers,  the  brokers, 
the  jewellers,  the  travelling  salesmen,  the 
journalists,  the  athletic  clubs,  the  Sons  of 
the  Revolution  and  the  Fathers  of  the  Re 
bellion,  and  even  the  clergymen,  dine  in 
this  public  fashion. 

This  style  of  entertainment  is  an  Ameri 
can  institution.  It  grows  out  of  two  con 
ditions.  First,  the  barrenness  of  much  the 
greater  part  of  the  domestic  social  life ;  and 
second,  the  astonishing  and  admirable  glib- 
ness  of  speech  of  the  Americans  as  a  people. 

Some  of  this  speaking  I  heard  through  Public 

•  i       s 

the  courtesy  of  my  friend  the  editor,  and 
I  read  a  great  deal  of  it,  for  I  devoured 
American  newspapers  and  periodicals  dur 
ing  my  stay  there.  When  one  hears  these 
speeches — it  matters  little  by  whom,  for 
they  pretty  much  all  speak  well — one  is  a 
little  jealous  of  a  race  which  seems  to  be  en 
dowed  by  the  gods  with  a  gift  so  rare ;  but 
when  one  reads  them,  one  is  rather  sad 
than  jealous.  Nine -tenths  of  them  are 
as  sounding  brass.  They  are  for  the  ears 
— for  long  ears — not  for  the  mind.  A 


America  and  the  Americans 


French  politician  who  should  treat  his  con 
stituents  to  the  quality  of  oratory  that  evi 
dently  suffices  here,  would  be  ridiculed  by 
every  journal  in  France;  and  in  England 
such  an  one  would  be  quietly  shelved  at 
the  instance  of  his  own  party  leaders. 

One  understands  at  last  how  there  can 

be    so    much    speaking    here,    when    the 

speeches  are  analyzed,  for  most  of  them  are 

Gusts  of       mere  verbal  exercises — mere  gusts  of  ver- 

"verbosity*         ,  _T          ,  .   , 

bosity.  Not  that  one  wishes  to  give,  or  to 
leave,  the  impression  that  there  are  no  good 
speakers,  and  no  good  speaking,  among  the 
Americans.  That  would  be  altogether 
false. 

When  one  has  enjoyed  the  friendship, 
and  heard  the  speech,  both  private  and 
public,  of  Mr.  James  Russell  Lowell,  one 
may  not  say  that.  Mr.  Evarts,  too,  I  heard 
in  Paris  on  one  occasion,  and  Mr.  Joseph 
Choate  and  the  President  of  the  Harvard 
University  I  heard  speak  in  New  York,  and 
these  men  all  rank  with  the  very  best  men 
of  any  nation,  one  might  almost  say,  indeed, 
of  any  time.  But  much  of  this  speaking 
falls  under  one  and  the  same  head.  Like 

52 


Public  and  Private  Functions 

the  paltry  social  life  at  home,  and  the  occa 
sional  inappropriate  display  outside ;  like 
the  meanness  of  one's  personal  surround 
ings,  and  the  exaggerated  extravagance  of 
dress  in  public  ;  so  this  speaking,  much  of  The 
it,  is  but  an  insincere  laying  claim  to  what  y°J 
one  wishes  to  appear  rather  than  a  mod 
est  exhibition  of  what  one  is  or  knows. 
There  is  a  demagoguery  of  dress  and  man 
ners  and  speech,  as  well  as  of  political  ac 
tion,  and  it  is  here,  alas  !  in  this  republic, 
that  one  finds  it  in  its  most  disagreeable 
forms. 

No  one  would  belittle  the  high  claims  to 
sustained  and  brilliant  speech  of  Webster, 
Clay,  Calhoun,  of  Rufus  Choate,  Edward 
Everett,  Wendell  Phillips,  of  Beecher, 
Storrs,  Phillips  Brooks,  and  many  others. 
I  am  not  denying  that  there  have  been, 
and  are,  great  orators  in  this  country.  But, 
owing  to  the  Public  School  system  here,  no 
country  has,  or  has  had,  such  an  amount  The  home 
of  superficial  and  uncritical  culture  spread  '+gog*t. 
over  such  an  enormous  geographical  area. 
This  condition  of  things  intellectual  makes 
this  the  happiest  hunting  -  ground  for  the 

53 


America  and  the  Americans 

mountebank,  the  demagogue,  and  the  vari 
ous  other  shapes  which  verbosity  may  take. 
Minds    trained    just   enough   to    enjoy 
gaudy    epigrams    are  easily  enslaved   and 
carried  away  by  almost  every  gust  of  words 
that  blows.     Hence  it  is  a  great  tempta- 
Tke  orator-  tion  to  be  what  is  called  an  orator,  and 

icalcrop,  ,  j    •  rr»i 

orators  abound  in  consequence.  They  are 
one  of  the  crops  here,  like  wheat  and  cotton! 
There  is  scarcely  a  political  campaign  goes 
by  without  the  appearance  of  "  Women 
Orators,"  "  Boy  Orators,"  "Boy  Preach 
ers,"  "  Boy  Evangelists,"  and  many  other 
varieties  of  orator,  whose  silence  would  be 
golden  indeed.  No  matter  in  what  de 
partment  of  life  a  man  may  succeed,  he  is 
called  upon  to  speak,  and  because  he  knows 
about  one  particular  thing,  he  is  called  upon 
to  make  speeches  upon  all  sorts  of  subjects 
utterly  unrelated  to  his  specialty.  The  op 
portunity  to  advertise  one's  self  is  looked 
upon  as  the  most  valuable  reward  that  a 
grateful  democracy  can  offer  in  return  for 
valuable  services  received. 


54 


V 

Social  Contrasts 

AST  night  we  dined  at  the  A  smart 
house  of  the  representative  of 
one  of  the  wealthiest,  perhaps 
the  wealthiest,  families  of  this 
republic — our  host  is  a  woman  and  a  widow. 
Some  twenty  or  more  people  were  present, 
and  the  plate,  the  porcelain,  the  glass,  the 
naperie  were  the  most  magnificent  I  have 
ever  seen  on  a  private  table.  Some  of  the 
same  people  were  there  whom  I  have  met 
elsewhere,  and,  in  addition,  two  titled  Eng 
lishmen,  one  of  whom  took  the  hostess  in 
to  dinner,  despite  the  fact  that  a  distin 
guished  American,  a  member  of  one  of  the 
late  administrations,  was  present. 

But  I  am  beginning  to  see  that  "  Yan 
kee  Doodle  comes  to  town  a-riding  on  his 
pony  "  mainly  in  the  newspapers,  certainly 
not  in  American  drawing-rooms. 

It  was  not  a  long  dinner,  but   all  the 

55 


America  and  the  Americans 

seasons  and  all  points  of  the  compass  con 
tributed  to  the  bill-of-fare. 

I  am  told,  and  one  need  only  dine  out 

here,  or  examine  the  daily  bills-of-fare  at 

American     the  best  restaurants  to  believe  it,  that  New 

market*.          y^  .g  ^  ^  market  in  thfi  WQrld>        The 

variety  of  game,  fish,  fruit,  fresh  vegetables, 
and  shell-fish  that  is  evidently  procurable 
here  in  season  and  out  of  season  is  un 
equalled. 

Some  of  the  My  companion  at  table  was  the  beauti 
ful  lady  of  the  coronet.  On  the  other  side 
of  me  sat  a  languid  lady  who  manoeuvred 
the  conversation  into  a  confession  that  she 
was  an  authoress.  Alas  for  me !  I  have 
forgotten  her  name,  her  nom  de  guerre  and 
the  titles  of  her  books.  Of  the  other  peo 
ple  who  attracted  my  attention,  one  was  a 
banker,  who  is  also  a  politician,  owner  of 
a  racing-stable,  and  a  dog-fancier  ;  another 
was  a  clergyman,  who  also  turned  out  to 
be  an  Englishman,  though  in  charge  of  a 
large  church  here  ;  another  was  the  wife  of 
a  Western  man  of  mines,  and  of  fabulous 
wealth,  whose  origin,  I  was  told,  was  of 
the  most  humble ;  and  two  more  were  the 

56 


Social  Contrasts 


wife  and  daughter  of  a  citizen  of  Chicago, 
who,  having  made  a  fortune  there,  from 
behind  several  hundred  yards  of  dry-goods' 
counters,  gives  these  ladies  the  benefit 
thereof. 

But,  be  it  said,  no  one  would  have  sus-   Good  ma 
pected  these  things  of  any  of  the  people 


mentioned  —  unless  it  be  perhaps  of  the 
lady  from  Chicago  —  unless  one  were  told 
by  their  friends.  The  men  do  not  un 
buckle  their  revolvers  and  put  them  on 
the  table,  and  the  women  do  not  eat  with 
their  knives;  on  the  contrary,  there  is  a 
certain  subdued  air  about  it  all,  as  though 
the  participants  at  these  functions  were 
somewhat  awed  by  their  grandeur  and 
solemnity. 

But  even  this  wears  off  at  the  dance  to 
which  we  all  adjourn  later. 

In  a  public  place,  part  hall,  part  res 
taurant,  but  handsomely  decorated,  and 
adorned  with  plants  and  flowers,  we 
danced  —  or  rather  they  danced  —  for  I  soon  America* 
found  myself  unacquainted  with  the  mys 
teries  of  American  dancing.  It  is  different 
from  ours,  and  different  from  the  English, 

57 


America  and  the  Americans 

and  German,  also,  and  I  must  admit  more 
graceful,  though  in  the  early  morning  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  romping. 

Comparisons  are  always  very  shaky 
bridges  between  one  nation  and  another, 
and  so  I  will  not  say  that  at  these  affairs 
Vive  la  they  drink  more  or  less  than  in  France,  or 
in  England,  but  they  certainly  drink  a  good 
deal,  even  the  women,  and  principally  of 
very  cold  champagne.  It  is  the  dry,  brill 
iant,  sparkling  wine,  which  is  much  like 
the  climate  here.  May  they  continue  to 
love  it,  and  we  be  spared  the  phylloxera 
to  make  it  for  them. 

I  bade  my  dinner -hostess  good-night,  and 
also  several  other  hostesses,  who,  it  appears, 
are  the  official  hostesses  of  the  ball,  good 
night  as  well,  and  returned  to  my  friend's 
apartments.  To-morrow  I  go  with  him  to 
his  father's  house  in  the  country,  and  from 
there  to  spend  the  Sunday  at  a  large  club 
in  the  country  which  he  has  described  to 
me,  and  which  I  shall  soon  see  for  myself. 

We  spend  the  Friday  afternoon  and 
A  home  in  night  at  the  country-place  of  my  friend's 

^country.  ^    .g  &  beautiful^   wild    country  all 

58 


Social  Contrasts 


about  us,  and  the  first  really  quiet  and 
well-regulated  abode  away  from  the  crowd 
that  I  have  visited.  Herfe  again  is  a  con 
tradiction  of  my  impressions,  for  the  house 
hold  and  all  its  appurtenances,  the  roads 
and  the  quiet  of  the  woods,  bespeak  the 
choice  of  a  cultured  mind.  All  this  is  a 
thousand  years  in  advance  of  the  landing- 
stage,  the  tram  -  car,  and  the  profusely 
dressed  ladies  of  the  New  York  streets. 

On  the  following  day  we  go  to  spend 
the  Sunday  at  a  club  which  turns  out  to 
be  unique  in  my  experience  as  a  travel 
ler.     Several   thousand   acres  of  beautiful 
woods,  with  a  chain  of  crystal  lakes  in  the  American 
centre,  and  beautifully  kept  roads  around   intkece** 
the  lakes  and  through  the  woods,  and  the  try' 
hill-sides   dotted   here   and  there,  within 
this  immense  enclosure,  with  the  cottages, 
villas,  chateaux,  and  colonial  mansions  of 
the  members,  and  in  the  centre  of  it  all 
a  large  and  well-furnished  club-house. 

The  instigator  of  this  great  social  enter 
prise  is  an  American  who  made  his  own 
fortune.  There  are  fishing,  boating,  and 
out-of-door  sports,  both  in  summer  and 

59 


America  and  the  Americans 

winter.  There  are  some  seventy  houses 
here,  owned  and  built  by  different  people, 
who,  I  understand,  buy  the  land  on  which 
they  build  of  the  club  corporation,  of 
which  the  projector  is  the  permanent  presi 
dent.  The  whole  great  park  is  policed  and 
lighted  and  generally  cared  for  by  the 
club.  We  get  ourselves  comfortably  settled 
at  the  club-house,  where  there  are  rooms 
for  guests,  and  then  by  telephone  my 
friend  calls  up  horses,  and  with  two  others 
we  go  for  a  drive  upon  the  broad,  smooth 
roads.  These  roads  are  the  best  I  have 
seen  anywhere  in  America,  and  equal  to 
those  that  Napoleon  built  for  us,  which  are 
the  best  in  the  world. 

A  reminis-       As  we  are  driving  I  tell  my  friends  of 

'.Sickens.       how,  when  driving  in  Central  Park,  New 

York,  I  saw  a  groom  on  the  back  of  a  cart 

driven  by  two  ladies,  who  not  only  chewed 

tobacco  but  squirted  the  juice  on  the  road 

Servant?      behind  him.      "Now,"   I  remark,  "  if  I 

should  tell  of  such  an  incident,  I  should  be 

called  an  exaggerator  and  a  detractor  of 

the  country  !  "    "Ah,"  they  replied,  "  you 

would  give  the  impression  by  relating  such 

60 


Social  Contrasts 


an  incident  that  it  is  typical,  while  as  a 
matter  of  fact  none  of  us  has  ever  seen 
anything  of  the  kind." 

I  cannot  help  thinking  of  this  incident, 
however,  as  an  illustration  of  what  I  see  and 
hear  in  this  country  on  all  sides  of  me.  It 
is  a  fairy-land  of  contrasts.  One  moment  Contrasts. 
you  are  tumbled  through  streets  full  of  ruts 
and  holes,  the  next  moment  you  are  ushered 
into  the  seclusion  of  as  luxuriously  ap 
pointed  an  hotel  as  is  to  be  found  in  the 
wide  world  ;  in  the  morning  you  spend 
half  an  hour  in  a  torture-chamber,  shot 
along  on  an  endless  chain  and  filled  with 
tumbling  human  beings ;  in  the  evening 
you  dine  off  gold  plate,  and  drink  out  of 
crystal  vessels ;  as  you  walk  up  the  streets 
you  are  accosted  by  a  shivering,  ragged, 
hollow-cheeked  mortal,  who  claims  that  he 
has  no  place  to  sleep,  and  has  had  nothing 
to  eat ;  in  another  moment  you  are  in  a 
palace,  and  from  scores  of  boxes  women 
lean  forth,  with  the  price  of  thousands  of 
good  dinners  on  their  arms,  shoulders,  and 
in  their  hair.  You  are  driving  in  comfort 
over  well-kept  roads,  in  a  magnificent  park, 
61 


America  and  the  Americans 


Street 
sprinkling 
By  tobacco. 


Dispropor 
tionate 
wages. 


and  the  groom  of  the  fashionably  dressed 
lady  driving  in  front  of  you  squirts  to 
bacco-juice  under  the  noses  of  your  horses. 

There  are  thousands  of  men  and  women 
without  work  and  without  money  in  New 
York,  and  yet  to  get  trained  servants  is  a 
problem  so  difficult  of  solution,  that  many 
people,  I  am  told,  have  given  up  in  despair 
and  sought  refuge  in  hotels  and  apartment- 
houses. 

Read  some  of  these  figures,  my  economi 
cal  compatriots,  and  be  satisfied  to  stay  at 
home.  A  good  cook,  female,  is  paid  from 
one  hundred  to  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  francs  a  month,  and  in  large  estab 
lishments  much  more,  and,  of  course,  has 
her  board  and  lodging  besides.  Waitresses, 
laundresses,  chamber-maids  receive  from 
seventy-five  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
francs ;  coachmen,  from  two  hundred  to 
as  much  as  three  hundred  and  seventy-five 
francs ;  grooms  and  gardeners,  from  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  to  two  hundred 
and  fifty ;  and  in-door  men-servants — 
there  are  comparatively  few  of  these — from 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  to  two  hun- 
62 


Social  Contrasts 


dred  and  fifty  francs,  and  more,  a  month. 
For  these  wages  you  get,  mostly,  only  a 
mechanical,  uninterested,  and  impersonal  indifferent 
service — at  least  so  I  am  told  by  the  Ameri 
cans  themselves,  for  of  course  my  small  ex 
perience  in  such  matters  is  worthless ;  al 
though  in  a  large  establishment  at  Newport, 
where  there  must  have  been  at  least  ten 
servants,  my  clothes  were  neither  folded  nor 
brushed,  and  my  patent-leather  evening 
shoes  were  returned  to  me  nicely  blacked 
instead  of  polished  the  morning  after  I  had 
put  them  out. 

Women,  and  men  as  well,  seek  positions  Dislike  of 
in  swarms  where  they  are  paid  less  than 
good  servants  are  paid.  The  trained  nurses 
in  the  State  hospitals,  for  example,  do  not 
receive  as  much  in  wages  as  the  chamber 
maids  in  well-to-do  families — being  differ 
ent  from  the  private  trained  nurses,  who 
charge  exorbitantly  ;  the  thousands  of  shop 
and  factory  girls  have  longer  hours,  must 
board  and  lodge  themselves,  and  yet  receive 
smaller  wages. 

One  hears  complaints  in  England,  and 
in  France,  and  sometimes  in  Italy — more 

63 


America  and  tbe  Americans 


te     crerners 
.--e  pcir.t.  but    in    those 
incidental  ir.  i  ;  :  :;^ 
re  i:   is  2.    crr.:ir.er.t  ir.i 


clas  of  sen-acts, 
;  here  by  the  high 
•er  that  greater  ex- 


--.  -.     : 


Social  Contrasts 


tomed  to  the  care  of,  and  the  responsi 
bility  for,  servants. 

It  is  only  in  the  South  that  they  have 
had  servants  for  two  centuries.  In  every 
house  that  1  have  been  in,  I  have  taken  pains 
to  ask  my  host  if  any  of  his  servants  in 
doors  or  out  are  the  children  of  former 
sen-ants  of  his,  or  of  his  family,  and  never 
have  I  received  an  answer  in  the  affirma 
tive. 

I  recall  that  when  it  was  proposed  to  pat 
in  uniform  the  men  who  clean  the  streets 
in  New  York,  there  was  a  series  of  jibes  and 
jeers  and  sneers.  And  this  in  a  republic  ! 
This  in  a  land  where,  at  least,  one  would 
suppose  that  every  form  of  honest  toil  would 
be  honored,  or,  at  least,  respected.  Believe 
it  not,  ye  toilers  in  other  lands  who  look 
with  longing  eyes  toward  this  land  of  the 
free.  No  monarchy,  no  empire  in  Europe, 
so  exaggerates  the  value  of  success,  finan 
cial  success  especially,  and  so  degrades  the 
drudgery  of  commonplace  labor  as  do  the 
people  of  this  nation. 

In  England  the  Queen  pays  her  own  way 
on  every  railway  journey  she  takes;  in 

6s 


America  and  the  Americans 

France  the  President  of  the  Republic  does 
the  same  and  only  a  limited  number  of  men 
who  are,  strictly  speaking,  officials,  travel 
free ;  but  here  there  are  hundreds  of  rich  , 
men  connected  with  railways,  steam-boats, 
express  or  telegraph  companies,  who  have 
passes  and  who  travel  free,  send  their 
packages  free,  their  telegrams  free,  and  are 
accorded  privileges  that  no  sovereign  in 
Europe  would  dream  of  demanding  for 
himself. 
Great  pri-v-  The  rich  tax  the  poor  here  by  special  / 

ileges  of  ....  j     i  r  / 

wealth.  legislation  and  by  a  certain  freemasonr)V 
among  themselves,  much  as  the  powerful 
used  to  tax  the  poor  in  my  own  country, 
by  sheer  force  of  arms.  This  is  one  reason 
why  personal  service  of  any  kind  is  so  dif 
ficult  to  procure,  because  personal  service 
and  menial  labor,  while  studiously  ap 
plauded  politically,  are  universally  under 
valued  socially.  These  people  get  higher 
wages  here,  but  they  save  no  more,  and  they 
have  far  less  consideration  shown  them,  and 
they  have  less  amusement  and  less  comfort, 
and,  pray,  what  is  the  ultimate  value  of 
higher  wages — "  higher  wages,"  how  often 
66 


Social  Contrasts 


it  has  been  dinned  into  my  ears,  almost  as 
often  in  fact  as  the  statement  that  we  have 
no  word  for  "  home  "  in  French — if  there 
results  not  more  consideration,  more  com 
fort,  more  leisure  ?  Money  is  not  as  valu 
able  as  water  in  a  desert.  High  wages  are 
useless  if  you  cannot  buy  consideration, 
rational  amusement,  and  a  competency  for 
old  age  with  them.  For  the  lower  classes 
this  country  seems  in  some  sort  to  be  a 
desert,  socially,  where  they  are  thirsty  for  NO 
just  the  cold  water  of  their  happier,  though  //* 
perhaps  less  apparently  prosperous,  life  at 
home.  "  Why,  you  know,  sir,"  said  an 
English  groom  to  me  here,  "  a  dollar 
honly  buys  what  a  shillin'  does  at  'ome, 
sir,  and  the  masters  take  no  interest  in  hour 
amusements  as  they  does  at  'ome  !  " 


VI 

Conflicting  Evidence 

JY  two  days  at  the  great  park  in 
the  country  were  of  the  most 
pleasant.  At  this  time  of  the 
year  many  people  from  New 
York  go  there  to  spend  the  Saturday  and 
Sunday. 

A  relic  of  In  New  York  City  one  cannot  "  go  for  a 
ism.  a'  shave ' '  after  one  o'clock  on  Sunday,  and  all 
the  shops,  including  the  restaurants,  caf£s, 
and  saloons,  are  closed  by  law,  so  far  as  the 
sale  of  anything  potable  is  considered.  But 
an  hour's  ride  from  New  York,  in  almost 
any  direction,  are  numerous  country  clubs 
which,  in  the  last  ten  years,  have  become 
very  popular,  and  where  one  may  indulge 
in  out-of-door  sports  to  the  heart's  con 
tent.  At  Newport,  too,  I  found  people 
playing  tennis  and  golf  on  the  Sunday. 
But  no  poor  man  can  take  his  wife  and  chil 
dren  to  a  beer-garden,  or  drive  or  walk  into 
68 


Conflicting  Evidence 


the  country  to  sup,  and  have  a  glass  of  beer 
or  wine. 

When  our  Bernhardt  was  here,  there  was  Bemhardt 
much  discussion  as  to  whether  she  was  a 
proper  person  to  be  received,  and  ladies 
who  gave  her  receptions,  gave  it  out  that 
no  unmarried  girls  were  to  be  invited  to 
meet  her!  This  aspersion  of* the  char 
acter  of  the  married  girls  was  passed 
over  without  any  chuckling  or  laughter, 
and  yet  these  Americans  often  speak  of 
the  national  talent  for  seeing,  and  making 
jokes. 

Poor  Guilbert  received  much  gratuitous 
advertising  because  she  appeared  once  or 
twice  in  private  before  a  select  number  of 
the  < '  leaders  of  New  York  Society. ' '  And 
yet  the  newspapers  who  assailed  both  her 
and  the  ladies  who  went  to  hear  her,  pub 
lish  Sunday  editions  replete  with  illustra 
tions  and  paragraphs  concerning  criminals 
of  high  and  low  degree. 

When  the  statue  of  the  Greek  Slave  was 

exhibited  in   Cincinnati,    a  delegation  of 

clergymen  was  sent  to  view  it,  that  they 

might  make  a  report  to  their  presumably 

69 


America  and  the  Americans 


Chaste 
Diana. 


Hypocrisy 
or  self- 
deception. 


less  expert  fellow-citizens  as  to  the  propri 
ety  of  going  to  see  it. 

An  undraped  statue  of  Diana  on  the 
top  of  the  Madison  Square  Garden  in  New 
York  caused  much  criticism  on  the  score 
of  its  indecency  ;  and  yet  at  several  of 
the  public  balls,  one  of  which  I  attended 
for  an  hour  or  two,  women  appeared  in 
costumes,  and  behaved  in  a  manner,  that 
made  my  youthful  memories  of  the  Mabille 
seem  sombre  and  saltless. 

So  far  as  my  own  experience  goes,  it  has 
seemed  to  me  that  much  of  the  immorality 
here  among  the  upper  classes  is  rather 
mental  than  physical.  The  intercourse  be 
tween  men  and  women  is  very  free,  or  so 
it  appeared  to  me  j  but  the  worst  feature  of 
it  is  the  stories  and  slanders  that  they 
themselves  circulate  about  one  another. 
A  certain  unconscious  hypocrisy  is  preva 
lent  among  the  people  of  all  classes.  An 
instance  of  this  is  the  constant  reference 
one  hears — I  suppose  for  the  benefit  of  the 
poorer  classes — to  the  immense  cost  of  the 
standing  armies  in  France,  in  Germany, 
and  in  Italy,  and  how  men  are  obliged  to 
70 


Conflicting  Evidence 


serve  in  them  at  an  immense  loss  to  agri 
culture  and  commerce.  But  place  the 
figures  of  the  cost  to  France  of  her  army 
alongside  of  these  figures,  my  French 
friends : 

In  the  year  1880  the  United  States  paid  250,802    Pensions. 
pensioners  the  sum  of  286,202,700  francs. 

In  the  year  1885  the  United  States  paid  345,125 
pensioners  the  sum  of  328,468,530  francs. 

In  the  year  1890  the  United  States  paid  537,944 
pensioners  the  sum  of  532,469,450  francs. 

In  the  year  1895  the  United  States  paid  970,524 
pensioners  the  sum  of  704,796,805  francs. 

Less  than  thirty  thousand  persons  short  of 
a  million,  in  this  total  population  of  sixty- 
seven  millions,  receive  pensions,  and  these 
pensions  constitute  a  drain  on  the  national 
exchequer  each  year  of  704,796,805  francs. 
If  one  deducts  the  negroes  and  the  for 
eign  population  settled  here  since  the  war, 
who  of  course  receive  no  pensions,  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  almost  one  out  of  every 
forty-five  or  fifty  of  all  the  inhabitants  is 
paid  a  bounty  by  the  State.  This  sum 
paid  out  in  pensions  each  year  is  almost 
one-half  of  the  total  value  of  the  exports 


America  and  the  Americans 

from  the  United  States  to  the  United 
Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  in  one  year, 
and  Great  Britain  is  by  far  their  largest 
customer,  and  is  more  than  one-eighth  of 
the  sum  of  the  total  domestic  exports  for 
the  year.  As  a  colossal  piece  of  political 
extravagance,  this  surpasses  anything  ever 
'gance'.0*  dreamed  of  in  the  history  of  nations  tip  to 
this  time. 

While  the  Democratic  party  robs  New 
York  City,  the  Republican  party  robs  New 
York  State,  and  some  of  the  above-men 
tioned  pensioners  rob  the  United  States, 
the  people  in  Cincinnati  are  trying  to  de 
termine  whether  they  are  too  good  to  look 
at  the  Greek  Slave,  and  the  citizens  of  New 
York  are  blushing  with  shame  at  the  sight 
of  Sarah  Bernhardt  in  respectable  drawing- 
rooms.  And  these  are  the  people  who  gave 
us  Mark  Twain,  Artemus  Ward,  and  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  !  Pray,  what  has  become 
of  the  national  sense  of  humor  ? 

Lacking  in        The  nation,  like  so  many  of  the  individ- 
economy.       ua]s  composing  it,  has  grown  rich  with  start 
ling  rapidity,  but  they  do  not  know  how  to 
take  care  of,  or  how  to  use,  their  money, 
72 


Conflicting  Evidence 


Economy,  the  touchstone  of  all  the  arts 
of  civilization,  is  an  unknown  quantity 
here. 

Said  a  distinguished  American  publisher 
to  me  :  "  The  people  in  New  York  whom 
I  pity  are  not  the  poor,  not  the  laboring 
men,  and  the  small  people  on  small  in 
comes  ;  but  those  who  have  incomes  ranging 
from  four  to  seven  thousand  dollars  a  year. ' ' 
There  is  no  place  for  them  in  this  great  city, 
it  appears.  Rents  are  too  high,  the  wages 
of  servants  are  too  high,  fuel,  food,  and 
clothing  are  too  high,  to  permit  them  to  live 
with  such  surroundings  and  such  comforts 
as  their  incomes  ought  to  give  them.  Cer 
tain  social,  intellectual,  and  charitable  de 
mands  are  made  upon  them  that  no  one 
thinks  of  making  upon  the  poor,  and  they 
are  put  to  it  to  keep  their  heads  above 
water  in  consequence. 

This  is  not  true  of  Paris,  it  is  certainly 
not  true  of  Berlin,  of  Brussels,  of  Rome, 
or  of  Amsterdam,  and  I  doubt  if  it  be  true 
of  London.  It  is  assuredly  a  curious  com 
ment  upon  a  democracy,  that  in  its  greatest 
city  only  the  dwellers  in  the  two  extremes, 

73 


America  and  tke  Americans 


tenements  and  palaces,  live  in  comfortable 
financial  security. 

This  is  a  country  of  extremes  and  con 
trasts;  no  traveller,  I  fancy,  would  gainsay 
that.  Everything  that  they  take  up  here 
is  exaggerated.  In  Paris  one  sees  many 
women  wearing  no  skirts  at  all  when  rid 
ing  their  bicycles.  Here,  in  the  upper 
part  of  New  York,  and  in  the  parks,  at 
Newport,  Saratoga,  and  other  places,  one 
sees  many  women  who  wear  skirts,  but 
skirts  of  just  that  degree  of  shortness  which 
makes  their  wearers  more  conspicuous  than 
if  they  wore  no  skirts  at  all.  It  is  the  dif 
ference  between  the  bare  legs  of  an  Ital 
ian  fisherwoman,  or  a  Swiss  washerwoman, 
and  the  black  -  stockinged  and  gartered 
legs  of  the  vaudeville  stage,  or  the  lubri 
cous  poster.  This  whole  matter  is  subjec 
tive,  not  objective.  It  is  a  question  of  the 
Tke  seen  imagination.  It  is  not  what  is  seen,  but 
,  what  is  suggested  that  plays  havoc  with 
decency. 

It  may  be  the  climate,  which  is  highly  ex 
citing,  or  this  newly  made  wealth,  or  the  de 
sire  to  surpass  others,  but  whatever  the  cause, 

74 


Conflicting  Evidence 


there  is  a  tendency  to  carry  to  extremes 
such  customs  as  they  adopt.  The  ladies 
and  gentlemen  one  sees  at  the  various  sum 
mer-resorts  are  very  attractive  to  the  eye, 
but  the  masculinity  of  the  garments  worn 
by  the  women,  and  the  effeminacy  of  the 
costumes  of  some  of  the  men,  make  the  scene 
appear,  somehow,  not  quite  natural.  It  was 
rather  as  if  a  number  of  people  were  taking 
part  in  a  play  given  out  of  doors. 

The  men  here  are  good  sportsmen  for  all  First-rate 

sportsmen, 

that.  There  are  probably  more  good  shots 
with  rifle,  shot  -  gun,  and  revolver  within 
the  boundaries  of  this  republic  than  in  any 
other  country  in  the  world.  American 
horses  have  won  at  the  best  races  in  France 
and  in  England.  At  France  and  England's 
own  game  of  court-tennis  an  American  is 
facile  princeps,  and  in  track  athletics  and 
in  yachting  they  have  only  lately  given 
fresh  proof  of  their  superiority.  The  re 
cords  for  the  high  jump,  and  the  broad 
jump,  for  hurdle  racing,  and  the  half  mile, 
and  mile  flat  race,  and  I  believe  all  the 
records  for  skating  and  bicycle  racing  are 
held  by  Americans.  They  have  no  equals 

75 


America  and  the  Americans 

at  all  these  out-of-door  sports,,  unless  it  be 
the  English,  and  even  their  equality  is 
stoutly  denied  here. 

But  even  in  their  sports  it  seems  to  be  less 
love  of  sport  than  love  of  personal  distinc 
tion  and  display  that  actuates  the  majority. 
They  play  not  for  the  mental  and  physical 
refreshment  so  much,  as  for  the  excitement 
of  surpassing  someone  else. 

Time  and  time  again  have  I  remarked 
upon  the  fact  that  it  is  a  rare  thing  to  find, 
even  in  the  country,  people  walking  for  the 
mere  pleasure  of  gentle,  unexciting  exercise. 
All  over  France,  Germany,  and  England 
you  see  people  by  the  hundred,  on  any  free 
day,  walking  in  the  country  roads,  lanes, 
and  by-paths.  Here,  no  such  inconspicu 
ous,  unexciting  exercise  is  popular.  There 
seems  to  be  a  certain  feverishness  of  rivalry 
even  in  the  way  they  take  their  exercise. 
sport  at  the  One  of  the  results  of  this  is  an  endless 
?«v*.wr  series  of  dissensions,  quarrels,  and  discus 
sions,  not  among  the  professionals  alone, 
but  among  the  young  gentlemen  of  the 
universities  and  the  athletic  clubs.  In 
deed  the  game  of  foot-ball  was  played  at 


Conflicting  Evidence 


last,  among  these  young  gentleman,  with 
so  much  bad  temper,  with  so  many  personal 
encounters,  and  with  such  ceaseless  accusa 
tions  of  cheating,  foul  play,  and  bad  faith, 
against  one  another,  that  it  was  seriously 
proposed  to  stop  the  intercollegiate  games 
altogether. 

All  this  is  of  course  disgraceful,  and  for 
it  there  is  no  excuse  whatever,  unless  it  be 
that  these  so-called  young  gentlemen  are 
not  gentlemen  at  all. 

There  seems  to  be  a  lack  of  the  compara 
tive,  and  of  the  intermediate,  of  any  sense 
of  the  value  of  the  mean  between  extremes 
in  everything. 

The  newspapers  banish  the  comparative, 
and  use  only  superlatives.  Men  are  either 
"  rich  "  or  "  poor  ;  "  speeches  are  "  elo 
quent,"  and  speakers  are  "  orators  ;  "  fire 
men  and  policemen  are  "  heroes  ;  "  shops 
have  "  splendid  "  or  "magnificent"  dis 
plays  in  their  windows ;  unknown  country 
clergymen  pay  "  touching  tributes  "  to  de 
ceased  parishioners ;  shopkeepers  in  pro 
vincial  towns  are  "  wealthy  merchants  ;  " 
men  of  wealth  who  die  almost  always  leave 

77 


America  and  the  Americans 

"several  millions" — generally  it  is  "  ten 
millions;  "  actors  and  actresses  and  pub 
lic  speakers  "receive  ovations;"  Mrs. 
Jones,  Mrs.  Brown,  and  Mrs.  Robinson 
receive  their  guests  "  attired  in  lovely  crea 
tions,"  and  "wearing  the  well-known" 
Jones,  Brown,  or  Robinson  "jewels;" 
lawyers  make  ' '  masterly  pleas  ;  ' '  doctors 
receive  "enormous  fees;"  the  sale  of  a 
popular  book  "  runs  up  into  the  tens  of 
thousands;"  of  the  newspapers  that  have 
"  the  largest  circulation  in  the  world  " 
'•'•Smashing  there  is  no  end  ;  and  the  "  smashing  of  rec 
ords  "  that  goes  on  in  this  land  of  super 
latives  in  every  department  of  life,  es 
pecially  in  the  Weather  Bureau,  which 
'  <  smashes  ' '  at  least  one  ' '  record  ' '  a  day 
every  day  in  the  year,  must  keep  the  poor 
statisticians  very  busy. 

This  is  all  of  a  kind,  with  the  furi 
ous  race  for  wealth,  and  the  striving  for 
victory  at  any  price,  which  in  the  one 
case  interferes  with  the  quiet  and  com 
fort  of  domestic  life,  and  in  the  other 
breeds  constant  discord  in  many  of  their 
athletic  competitions.  Success  is  not  very 

78 


Conflicting  Evidence 


closely  scrutinized,  but  failure  is  given  lit 
tle  quarter. 

Though  I  have  been  treated  everywhere, 
and  by  everybody,  with  courtesy,  and  often 
with  prodigal  hospitality,  one  phase  of  my 
character,  I  have  often  noticed,  is  looked 
upon  with  disapproval,  and  sometimes  with 
something  akin  to  contempt,  and  that  is 
my  contentment  !  Why  do  I  not  speculate,  Horror  of 
why  do  I  not  invest  in  this  or  that  ?  No-  me*t?" 
body  can  understand  here  that  a  man  can 
really  have  enough  !  There  must  be  either 
a  vein  of  duplicity,  or  a  streak  of  insanity 
in  a  man  of  forty-five  who  is  willing  to 
live  on  his  income,  to  serve  on  the  various 
committees  of  his  little  country  town,  to 
look  after  the  village  school,  to  superintend 
the  repairing  of  the  roads,  and  to  see  to  it 
that  his  farm-buildings  are  in  order  and 
his  few  tenants  comfortable  and  happy.  I 
am  asked  why  I  do  not  run  for  office,  why  pvzziedbj 
I  do  not  start  a  newspaper,  if  I  have  bought 
shares  in  African  gold  mines,  why  I  do  not 
build  tenement-houses,  why,  in  short,  I  do 
not  try  to  make  myself  famous  or  enor 
mously  rich  ! 

79 


America  and  the  Americans 

Apparently  it  is  scarcely  reputable  to  be 
contented.  I  dare  not  reply  that  to  be 
conspicuous  politically,  or  to  be  prominent 
socially,  or  to  be  very  rich,  here,  in  this 
land  of  freedom,  seems  to  me  to  be  about 
the  most  awkward  thing  that  can  happen 
to  a  man,  who  has  not  the  hide  of  a  rhi 
noceros  ;  but  if  I  did  so  reply,  that  would 
be  my  honest  conclusions  of  the  whole 
matter. 

The  rich  man  in  America  carries  the 
weight  of  all  his  wealth  as  a  handicap  in 
any  political  race.  In  any  other  country 
in  the  world  it  would  help  him,  because  the 
constituency  to  which  he  would  appeal 
would  consider  that  his  wealth  was  a  mark 
of  success  and  a  sign  of  ability.  But  let 
an  Astor  or  a  Vanderbilt  or  a  Rockefeller 
Thehandi-  or  a  Belmoiit  run  for  office  here,  or  let  him 
capiith.  even  be  appointed  to  office  by  the  Presi 
dent,  and  there  is  a  chorus  of  envy,  jeal 
ousy,  and  malicious  criticism.  They  are 
all  struggling  for  wealth,  and  they  cer 
tainly  toady  to  some  extent  to  men  who 
have  great  wealth,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  seem  to  take  a  peculiar,  and,  to  me, 

80 


weat 


Conflicting  Evidence 


incomprehensible  delight  in  preventing 
rich  men  from  exercising  their  abilities  in 
public  and  diplomatic  office. 

In  the  case  of  one  candidate  for  the 
presidency,  a  photograph  of  his  rather 
large  house  in  Washington  was  used 
throughout  the  West  and  South  as  a  cam-  Wealth  and 

,  •  i  •  /~\  politics. 

paign  document  against  him.  One  may 
say,  with  the  approval  of  every  astute 
politician  in  America,  that  the  nomination 
and  election  of  a  millionnaire  to  the  office 
of  President  of  the  United  States  would  be 
absolutely  impossible.  To  call  a  newspaper 
a  rich  men's  newspaper,  or  a  prominent 
railroad  official  a  rich  men's  servant,  or  a 
great  corporation  lawyer  a  rich  men's  coun 
sel,  is  enough  to  discredit  him  in  certain 
sections  of  the  country. 

Ninety  years  ago  the  founder  of  the 
Astor  fortune  was  a  poor  boy  in  the  streets 
of  New  York ;  fifty  years  ago  the  founder 
of  the  Gould  fortune  was  an  unknown  sur 
veyor;  twenty  years  ago  the  Vanderbilts 
were  not  known  in  New  York  society ;  the 
Belmonts  came  to  New  York  in  the  thirties, 
and  the  Standard  Oil  fortunes  are  all  in  the 
81 


America  and  the  Americans 

possession  of  men  whose  fathers  were  un 
known  in  financial  circles  twenty-five  years 
Unaccount-  ago.  Why  then  be  jealous  of  men  and 
a0bllsy.eal'  women  whose  money  is  new  enough  to  suit 
the  most  stringent  American  test  ?  Would 
that  I  were  able  to  answer  my  own  ques 
tion  !  This  hot  haste  to  get  rich,  and 
this  fierce  envy  of  those  who  are  rich 
presents  an  ethical  problem  too  subtle  for 
solution  by  me.  In  France  and  Germany 
and  England  and  Italy  we  can  under- 
European  stand  the  men  who  have  no  wish  for  great 
Afferent,  wealth  for  themselves  or  for  others,  and 
who  declaim  against  wealth  as  a  wrong ; 
but  it  is  difficult  to  understand  men  who 
cry  out  for  more  money,  more  silver,  more 
paper,  more  anything  that  will  buy  things, 
and  then  turn  upon  those  who  have  money 
to  revile  them  !  They  are  infants  in  mat 
ters  of  economics,  these  good  people ; 
nothing  else  can  explain  their  attitude. 


82 


VII 

On  Being  Busy 

iNTIL  one  has  been  in  this  coun 
try  some  months,  and  has  seen 
at  close  quarters  the  methods  of 
the  business  and  professional 
men,  it  is  impossible  to  picture  to  one's  self 
the  almost  fanatical  use  of  all  sorts  of  me 
chanical  contrivances  for  the  saving  of 
labor,  and,  as  I  am  inclined  to  believe,  for 
the  wasting  of  time. 

On  the  train  going  to  Boston  I  noticed 
one  gentleman  who  had  with  him  a  youth 
with  a  type-writing  machine.  During  al-  Tkeapotkt 

,  ,      ,  ,  .        osisofthe 

most  the  whole  time  we  were  in  the  tram  type- 
he  was  dashing  off  what  appeared  to  be  an 
enormous  correspondence  While  I  was 
not  engaged  in  conversation  with  my  two 
Boston  friends,  I  watched  his  proceedings 
with  interest. 

Some  of  the  letters  were  very  short,  not 
more  than  a  dozen  lines,  others  were,  no 

83 


America  and  the  Americans 


doubt,  much  longer.  The  process  was  about 
as  follows :  A  letter  was  taken  up  and  read 
through  by  the  gentleman.  Then  a  sheet 
of  paper  was  put  into  the  machine,  adjusted 
and  re-adjusted,  and  the  secretary  pro 
ceeded  to  play  on  his  keys,  lifting  the 
machine  every  now  and  then  to  look  at 
what  he  had  written,  while  the  gentleman 
dictated.  Twice  his  dictation  was  not  to 
his  satisfaction,  the  sheet  in  the  machine 
was  taken  out,  and  a  fresh  one  substituted, 
and  the  letter  re-written.  The  letter  once 
written,  the  secretary  read  it  over,  then 
the  master  read  it  over,  usually  made  some 
corrections,  and  finally  signed  it.  Then 
an  envelope  was  put  into  the  machine, 
an  address  printed  on  it,  the  envelope 
taken  out,  the  letter  picked  up  and  put 
into  the  envelope,  the  envelope  sealed,  and 
the  task  for  that  letter  was  done. 
Time  and  The  whole  attention  of  two  men  \vas  de- 
voted  to  the  one  letter,  and  the  time  con 
sumed,  the  machine-power  used,  and  the 
expense  of  the  labor  required,  were  out  of 
all  proportion  to  what  was  accomplished. 
An  accomplished  secretary  with  such  a 

84 


On  Being  Busy 


bundle  of  letters,  and  a  few  notes  on  each 
by  his  master,  could  have  disposed  of  this 
correspondence  in  one-third  to  one-half 
the  time,  while  occupying  the  time  and  at 
tention  of  one,  instead  of  two,  men. 

In  every  office  of   any  importance  one   where 
finds  a  type-writer.     They  are  used  in  writ-   -writer  is 
ing  letters  of  every  description,  and  often  //««. 
letters  demanding,  by  all  the  laws  of  cour 
tesy,  a  reply  in  the  hand  of  the  master  or 
his  secretary.     In  many  cases  the  manipu 
lator  of  the  type-writing  machine  is  also  a 
shorthand  writer.     When  this  is  the  case, 
letters  and  communications  of  all  kinds  are 
dictated  to  the  shorthand  writer,  who  then 
retires  and  prints  them  off  on  his  machine, 
brings   them    back   to   be  read  over  and 
signed,  and  then  puts  them  in  their  enve 
lopes,  and  addresses  them. 

No  one  denies  that  in  a  great  office  there 
is  a  mass  of  matter  that  can  be  turned  off 
quickly  and  properly  by  the  use  of  these 
machines.  But  there  is  a  mania  for  their 
use  here,  and  it  is  considered  "business 
like  ' '  and  suggestive  of  tremendous  and 
rushing  employment  on  the  part  of  the 

85 


America  and  the  Americans 


Stealing 
time* 


Haste  and 
"waste. 


user  to  employ  them  on  all  occasions.  The 
telephone,  too,  jingles  its  summons  in  every 
office  and  in  every  house,  and  the  amusing 
side  of  it  all  is,  that  men  most  devoted  to 
these  devices  for  saving  time,  will  waste  time 
every  day  in  ways  that  no  busy  Frenchman, 
German,  or  Englishman  would  permit  for  a 
moment. 

In  offices  furnished  with  all  the  labor- 
saving  machines  that  this  most  ingenious 
people  have  devised,  men  come  to  sit 
down,  and  chat  and  smoke  by  the  half- 
hour.  Often  the  office-door  opens  to  admit 
the  intruder  directly  into  the  presence  of 
this  supposedly  busy  man.  He  cannot  es 
cape,  and  his  time  is  consumed  by  the  half- 
hourful  by  friends  and  acquaintances  who 
have  nothing  better  to  do. 

Men  who  rush  off  from  a  hasty  break 
fast  to  board  an  express  train,  to  be  whirled 
to  their  telephone  and  type- writer,  often 
employ  a  good  proportion  of  time,  when 
in  the  city,  doing  small  errands,  and  in 
visiting,  and  being  visited  by  other  busi 
ness  men,  who  have  also  rushed  into  the 
city  at  the  rate  of  a  mile  a  minute,  carry- 

86 


On  Being  Busy 


ing  an  undigested  breakfast  in  their  stom 
achs,  which  they  try  vainly  to  soothe  with 
a  cigar  consumed  in  a  smoke  -  reeking 
''smoking-car." 

It  is  considered  symbolic  of  success  to 
"  have  no  time  !  "  While  the  very  test  of 
true  success  is,  of  course,  to  prove  yourself 
master  of  time ;  for  if  one  is  the  slave  of 
time,  he  is  perforce  the  slave  to  the  thou- 
sand-and-one  devils  that  haste  has  in  its 
train. 

I  have  done  business  in  Paris,  in  Lon-  Business 
don,  and  in  New  York,  and  to  a  small  ex-  metkods- 
tent  in  Berlin,  but  I  refrain  from  giving  my 
own  opinion,  though  I  may  quote  two 
Americans  on  this  subject.  One  is  a  New 
York  banker,  the  other  a  New  York  lawyer. 
The  first  told  me  that  he  could  do  more 
business  in  London,  or  in  Berlin,  in  half 
an  hour,  than  he  could  do  in  New  York  in 
two  hours;  and  the  other,  the  lawyer, 
said  the  same  of  London,  with  the  differ 
ence  that  he  made  the  ratio  a  half-hour  to 
one  hour.  Letters,  the  lawyer  said,  were 
answered  more  promptly,  engagements 
were  kept  more  punctually,  and  busy  men 

37 


America  and  the  Americans 

refused  absolutely  to  have  their  fixed  hours 
for  work  disturbed  or  interfered  with. 

The  Americans  have  far  more  mechanical 
devices,  and  make  more  use  of  them,  than 
any  other  people,  but  these  cannot  com 
pensate  for  the  lack  of  trained,  and  faith 
ful,  personal  service. 

I  may  not  mention  the  name  of  my 
distinguished  friend,  a  French  banker 
in  Paris,  but  the  political,  social,  and 
strictly  professional  work  that,  with  the 
aid  of  two  secretaries,  he  turns  off  every 
day  between  the  hours  of  ten  and  three — 
just  five  hours — it  would  require  a  dozen 
telephones,  and  as  many  type-writers, 
merely  to  enumerate.  No  Frenchman, 
and  no  Englishman,  holding  public  office, 
no  matter  how  important,  would  fail  to 
A  question  answer  a  civil  note  promptly,  and  by  the 
of  civility.  hand  Ofa  secretary;  here,  on  the  contrary, 

one  receives  notes  and  letters,  even  of  a 
personal  nature,  dictated  to  a  type-writer. 

No  amount  of  machinery  can  atone  for  a 
lack  of  method,  and   for  the   systematiza- 
tion  of  the  business  side  of  life,  by  impera 
tive   and  unbreakable  rules.     Here,  there 
88 


On  Being  Busy 


is  a  good  deal  of  work  of  all  kinds  done  at 
hap-hazard,  and  the  consequent  waste  of 
time  is  enormous. 

The  critics  of  all  this  will  not  remember 
how  new  is  everything.  I  keep  forgetting 
it  myself.  Fifty  years  ago  Harvard  Uni-  Fifty  years 
versity  had  only  two  hundred  students;  as°' 
schooling,  even  of  an  elementary  kind,  was 
difficult  to  get ;  libraries  and  books  were 
scarce ;  a  German — and  seventy-five  years 
ago  a  Greek — text-book  was  a  rarity ;  edu 
cated  and  cultivated  men  were  few,  and 
even  now  a  trained  mind  is  not  essential 
to  political  success,  or  even  to  the  holding 
of  the  highest  political  offices,  hence  even 
now  the  demand  for  such  is  comparatively 
small. 

How  can  one  expect  then  an  army  of 
experienced  clerks,  hundreds  of  competent 
private  secretaries,  thousands  of  well-trained 
servants  of  every  description  ?     It  is  lack  of  Waste,  of 
these  that  makes  a  methodical  life  difficult,   encrgy' 
and  which  interferes  at  every  step  with  a 
man's  getting  the  very  best  out  of  him 
self,    at   the   smallest   cost   to   himself  of 
worry  and  waste. 


America  and  the  Americans 

Then,  too,  besides  the  scarcity  of  the 
higher  grades  of  labor,  there  is  a  very 
general  disinclination  on  the  part  of  even 
those  who  can  afford  it,  to  pay  others  for 
doing  what,  by  any  possibility,  they  can  do 
for  themselves.  Hence  hundreds  of  men  are 
wasting  time  and  strength,  and  decreasing 
their  own  ability  to  do  their  best,  by  in 
sisting  upon  expending  themselves  in  doing 
what  others  could  do  as  well  for  them. 

In  England — and  I  may  be  pardoned  if 
I  am  prejudiced  in  my  remarks  on  the  sub 
ject  of  America's  great-grandmother  — 

English  there  is  a  pretentious  affectation  of  idleness. 
To  hear  many  young  men  talk  in  England, 
one  would  imagine  that  they  never  did 
any  work,  that  none  of  their  ancestors  had 
ever  done  any,  and  that  none  of  their 
friends  had  any  to  do.  The  height  of 
"bad  form"  is  to  refer  to,  or  to  talk, 
"shop."  This  I  deem  a  ridiculous  af 
fectation  on  the  part  of  any  class,  in  a  na 
tion  of  shopkeepers. 

In  America  there  is,  however,  an  equally 

American     ridiculous   affectation  of  appearing  to   be 

affectation.     ,  T  .  ,  ..  .. . 

busy.     In  England    polite  snobbery  dic- 
90 


On  Being  Busy 


tates  the  question  :  "  How  are  you  amusing 
yourself?"  In  America  polite  snobbery 
dictates  the  question  :  "  What  are  you  do 
ing?"  Everybody  is,  out  of  politeness, 
supposed  to  be  over  head  and  ears  busy. 
Busy  in  trade,  busy  in  his  profession,  busy 
socially  !  You  are  continually  hearing  both 
men  and  women  say  :  "  I  really  must  give 
up  some  of  my  engagements ;  I  have  no 
time  for  anything !  "  All  this  is  the  more 
ridiculous  when  one  comes  to  see  how  very 
restricted  is  the  variety  of  social  distrac 
tion,  even  in  New  York — while  outside  of 
New  York  and  Washington,  the  social 
functions  in  other  cities  are  not  only  of 
a  restricted  but  of  a  somewhat  provincial 
kind. 

But  it  is  the  fashion  to  be  busy,  to  be  Pretence oj 

,     ,          ,  .  .  ,         business, 

overwhelmed  with  engagements,  to  be 
pressed  for  time,  to  be  driven  to  death,  in 
short,  by  one's  terrible  social,  professional, 
or  business  responsibilities.  In  some  cases 
it  is  true,  but  true  because  the  sufferers  are 
incompetent  to  control  their  own  affairs ; 
but  in  the  great  majority  of  instances  it  is  a 
huge  joke  or  a  seriously  assumed  affectation. 


America  and  the  Americans 


Lack  of 
recreation. 


A  patho- 

logical 

wager. 


This  hypocrisy,  however,  brings  many 
evils  in  its  wake.  So  many  people  object 
to  being  suspected  of  having  any  time  on 
their  hands,  that  they  will  not  take  recre 
ation  openly,  even  when  they  can  do  so  as 
well  as  not. 

A  friend  here  tells  me  that  his  physician, 
who  is  a  recognized  authority  in  the  med  • 
ical  world  and  the  author  of  one  or  two 
books,  tells  him  that  the  great  cities  of 
America  are  the  paradise  of  nervous  dis 
eases,  and  that  the  use  of  sedatives  is  far 
more  prevalent  here  than  in  any  other 
country  in  the  world. 

I  have  no  statistics,  and  the  observation 
I  am  about  to  make  may  have  no  warning 
significance,  but  one  day  an  acquaintance 
here,  who  knew  that  I  was  interested  in 
American  peculiarities,  offered  to  bet  me 
five  dollars  each  day,  for  two  weeks,  that 
each  morning  there  would  be  an  account 
of  a  suicide  in  the  newspapers,  and  twenty- 
five  dollars  that  at  the  end  of  the  two  weeks 
there  would  have  been  not  less  than  ten 
suicides  noted.  I  declined  the  first  bet, 
but  took  the  second;  and  lost,  for  there 


92 


On  Being  Busy 


were  in  those  fourteen  days  eleven  suicides. 
This  may  mean  much,  or  it  may  mean  little, 
as  being  merely  a  coincidence,  but  it  is  a 
fact  that  I  have  deemed  worthy  of  jotting 
down,  as  it  came  under  my  own  personal 
observation,  and  is  not  a  tale  invented  for 
the  delectation  of  the  unwary  traveller. 

One  prime  reason  why  Americans  are 
considered  by  Europeans  to  be  under-cul 
tivated,  is  their  very  general  inability  to 
hold  any  sort  of  intercourse  by  correspond-  American 
ence  without  making  blunders  —  social  2£*/x.  °* 
blunders,  and  blunders  arising  from  lack 
of  training  and  education.  The  most 
commonplace  shades  and  gradations  of  dif 
ference  in  one's  correspondence  with  people 
who  occupy  different  relations  to  us  seem  to 
be  totally  unfamiliar  to  many  Americans, 
whose  wealth  and  position  would  imply  in 
any  other  country  just  such  knowledge. 

In    Rome,  London,   and   Berlin,   more   Contincn- 

.  rr     •    i  r  r      i  tal  gossip. 

than  one  unofficial  note,  from  one  of  the 
under-secretaries  at  the  American  Embas 
sies  of  these  cities,  has  been  passed  about 
as  a  sample  of  American  ignorance  and 
American  bad  manners. 

93 


America  and  the  Americans 

After  my  visit  to  Harvard  College  I 
Letter  received  a  note  about  some  trifling  matter 
vard.  '  from  one  of  the  students  there,  who  is  in 
the  highest  class,  whose  education  indeed 
was  supposed  in  a  month  or  two  to  be  fin 
ished.  In  it  two  words  were  misspelled, 
the  punctuation  was  done  evidently  by 
accident,  and  the  phrases  and  the  forms  of 
address  and  closing  were  such  as  a  French 
boy  ten  years  old  might  well  have  been 
ashamed  of. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  a  large  bundle 
of  the  most  charming  and  witty  notes  and 
letters  from  Americans.  What  I  am  re 
marking  upon  is  merely  that  the  great  mass 
of  people  in  some  sort  of  society  in  Amer 
ica  do  not  know  how  to  write  either  notes 
or  letters,  and  that  many  men  and  women 
holding  prominent  positions  and  possessing 
large  wealth,  write  you  notes  and  letters 
unworthy  of  a  first-rate  head-gardener  or  a 
country  shopkeeper. 

The  type-          This,  I  think,  is  partly  the  secret  of  the 
popularity.    American  love  of  the  type-writer,  the  tele 
phone,   and   the   telegraph.     It   not  only 
saves  time,  as  they  think  at  least,  but  it 

94 


On  Being  Busy 


also  saves  an  exposure  of  their  own  igno 
rance. 

It  is  a  fallacy  repeated  in  each  genera 
tion,  and  believed  by  the  superficial  of  each 
generation,  that  personal  service  will  be  Personal 
more  and  more  supplanted  by  mechanical  chanical 
service  ;  that  the  steam-locomotive  engine 
will  do  away  with  horses  and  men ;  that 
the  factory  will  do  away  with  the  hands ; 
that  the  reaper  will  banish  the  laborers ; 
that  the  type-writer  and  telephone  will 
banish  the  pen,  and  so  on.  But  these  in 
ventions  come,  are  welcomed,  are  used, 
and  still  there  is  a  subtle  quality  in  human 
nature  that  prevents  the  banishment  of 
men  by  machines. 

The  Americans  are  a  new  people,  and 
they  like   new  things,  having  no  prejudice   Love  of 
of  tradition  against  them,  and  they,  more 
easily  than  other  nations,  become  the  vic 
tims  of  this  fallacy. 

The  English,  dull  as  they  are,  have  seen 
the  futility  of  this  theory ;  so,  too,  have  the 
French,  and  to  an  even  greater  degree  have 
the  Germans,  while  the  Japanese  are  learn 
ing  it,  as  they  learn  everything,  with  the 

95 


America  and  the  Americans 


instinctive  mental  quickness  of  their  race. 
Methods  of   Little  England,  little  Germany,  little  Japan, 

commer 
cial  rivals,   train  their  men  rather  than  their  machines, 

and  the  commerce  of  the  world,  when  ana 
lyzed,  shows  the  results  in  spite  of  the  tre 
mendous  advantages  that  this  fabulously 
wealthy  —  in  natural  resources  —  country 
has. 

I  prophesy  that  twenty-five  years  from 
this  time,  machinery  will  not  be  used  so 
indiscriminately  to  take  the  place  of  men 
in  this  country,  and -that  far  more  men  and 
women  will  know  how  to  write  their  own 
letters  than  is  now  the  case. 

This  is  pre-eminently  the  land  of  free 
schools,  free  education,  and  free  opportu 
nity,  but  there  is  a  subtle  association  of 
ideas  needed  to  give  refinement. 

There  are  generations  of  men  and  wom 
en  in  Italy,  France,  Austria,  and  England, 
who  carry  on,  and  bequeath  to  others,  the 
intangible  laws  of  good  manners.  This  is 
lacking  here. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  lack  of 
willingness  to  learn  or  to  imitate  good 
models.  But  the  area  is  so  great,  prece- 


On  Being  Busy 


dents  are  so  few,  genuine  superiority  so  Lack  of 
loath  to  assert  itself,  and  regarded  with 
such  jealousy,  even  when  it  is  recognized, 
that  people  are  much  at  sea  for  teachers 
and  examples  in  matters  of  manners.  Hence 
the  stranger  is  often  surprised  to  find  an 
eminent  lawyer,  a  secretary  of  legation,  a 
clergyman,  a  member  of  the  cabinet — 
these  being  instances  that  have  come  under 
my  personal  notice — apparently  unable  to 
write  a  note  accepting  an  invitation  to  din 
ner,  and  ignorant  of  the  proper  way  to  ad 
dress,  and  to  phrase,  a  letter  to  one  with 
whom  they  are  only  slightly  acquainted. 
At  first  one  puts  it  down  to  boorishness, 
but  the  genial  reception  later,  and  the 
hearty  good-will  of  the  man,  when  you 
meet  him,  prove  conclusively  enough  that  it 
is  merely  ignorance  of  the  finer  shadings  of 
social  intercourse,  and  nothing  worse  than 
that. 

The  constant  and  almost  universal  use 
of  the  telephone,  the  telegraph,  and  the 
type-writer,  accustom  people  less  and  less 
to  the  more  ceremonious  forms  of  inter 
course.  The  drops  of  the  "  oil  of  glad- 

97 


America  and  the  Americans 

ness  "  which  soften  and  make  smooth  the 
The  refine-    interchange   of    formalities    between    man 

tnents  of  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,       , 

social  inter-  and  man,  when  the  pen  is  ready  and  the 
amenities  of  social  life  part  of  one's  very 
being,  are  not  to  be  found  here.  They 
have  no  time — so  they  say  !  They  work  so 
hard — so  they  affirm  !  Competition  is  so 
bitter,  "  we  must  hustle,"  "  we  must  hurry 
up  ;  "  capital  phrase  that,  "hurry  up !  " 
and  so  on  with  the  excuses.  Perhaps  these 
statements  are  true.  Who  knows  !  Cer 
tainly,  I  do  not,  but  my  grandmother  was 
wont  to  tell  me,  alas  !  all  too  many  years 
ago,  that  "gut  s' excuse,  s' 'accuse  /" 


VIII 

'American   Politics 

URING  my  stay  in  New  York 
I  met  a  number  of  politicians. 
One  in  particular  I  remember. 
A  man  a  few  years  younger 
than  myself,  who  has  already  played  a 
prominent  part,  and  who  was  running  over 
— his  enemies  say,  "  slopping  over  ' ' — with 
opinions  and  knowledge  of  political  mat 
ters,  both  new  and  old.  Later,  on  my  jour 
ney  to  Boston,  I  was  introduced  on  the  very 
steps  of  the  train  to  two  Boston  men,  both 
of  them  holding  office,  the  one  in  Wash-  A  sojour* 

,  ,  .        ,  .  ,-,  ,     in  Wash' 

ington,  the  other  in  his  own  State,  and   ington. 
during  our  five  hours'  journey  together  they 
told  me  much  that  was  of  interest. 

I  must  confess,  too,  that  not  long  ago  I 
was  in  Washington  in  a  semi-official  capac 
ity,  for  a  few  weeks,  and  much  that  I  saw 
and  heard  there  makes  part  of  my  present 
impressions. 

99 


America  and  the  Americans 

In  reading  the  newspapers — more  de 
tailed  notes  of  which  I  have  collected  in 
the  latter  part  of  my  journal — one  notices 
first  of  all  the  out-spoken  lawlessness  of 
pretty  much  everything  that  deals  with 
political  controversy.  One  would  imagine 
that  no  single  man  in  political  life  is  either 
trusted  or  respected.  This  method  of  deal 
ing  with  one's  political  opponents  is,  I 
found,  nothing  new. 

A  century  ago,  shortly  after  Jay's  treaty 
Pcrsonaii-     with    England   was   signed,    Washington, 
ago.     °ns    whose  name   is   now  received   everywhere 
with   something   little  short  of  reverence, 
was   dealt    with   in    much    the    same,    or 
even  in  worse,  fashion.     He  was  called  a 
"thief,"   "the   American   Csesar,"   "the 
step-father   of  his   country,"    accused    of 
having  committed   murder,    and   said    to 
"have  the  ostentation  of  an  Eastern  pa- 
shaw."      Thomas    Paine    wrote   of  him  : 
The  first       "  As  for  you,  sir,  treacherous   in  private 
presidents,     frien(3ship,  and  a  hypocrite  in  public  life, 
the  world  will  be  puzzled  to  decide  wheth 
er  you  are  an  apostate  or  an  impostor." 
After   his   retirement    from   office  another 


American  Politics 


wrote  :  "  Now  will  political  iniquity  cease 
to  be  legalized  by  a  name." 

Thomas  Jefferson  was  called  a  "cow 
ard  "  and  a  "runaway,"  and  his  turn  for 
philosophizing  was  ridiculed  when  he  was 
pictured — if  he  should  be  elected  President 
— as  surprised  by  a  foreign  minister  while 
"in  the  act  of  anatomizing  the  kidneys 
and  glands  of  an  African,  to  find  out  why 
the  negro  is  black  and  odoriferous." 

Adams  was  called  an  "aristocrat,"  "a  Political 

, ,  ,  , ,  amenities 

monocrat,      "an  anglomamac ;      was  ac-  at  the  birth 
cused  of  having  taken  a  bribe   from  the  °^ h 
British  for  his  celebrated  defence   of  the 
British  soldiers  after  the  so-called  Boston 
massacre,  and  was  said  to  be  desirous  of 
establishing  a  monarchy  with  his  sons  to 
succeed  him. 

Such  was  the  treatment  of  the  first  three 
presidents  of  the  United  States.  But  they 
were  not  alone.  No  one  escaped.  Jay 
was  burned  in  effigy.  Franklin  was  called 
a  "  rake,"  and  twitted  with  being  the  fa 
ther  of  illegitimate  children,  and  also  with 
having  bequeathed  a  lot  of  bad  debts  to  a 
hospital  for  a  legacy.  Hamilton  was  ac- 
101 


America  and  the  Americans 

cused  of  almost  as  many  unmentionable 
crimes  as  was  Napoleon,  while  Gerry, 
Marshall,  Gallatin,  Monroe,  Madison,  and 
far  too  many  more  to  enumerate,  suffered 
intolerable  indignities  of  verbal  insult. 

This  was  then  called,  and  still  goes  by 
the  name  of,  the  freedom  of  the  press.  In 
defence  of  this  privilege  to  insult  and  to 
The  news-  injure  your  enemy,  it  is  said  that  thereby 
thee™nse?  rascality  is  exposed,  and  all  underhand 
dealings  made  impossible.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  however,  the  result  has  been  to 
leave  few  newspapers  in  the  United  States 
with  much  power  for  good,  or  with  much 
ability  to  do  harm.  All  their  partisan  ti 
rades,  all  their  insulting  superlatives,  all 
their  libellous  accusations  are  read  indiffer 
ently,  and  considered  merely  part  of  the 
political  game.  The  newspapers  are  not 
bribed,  at  least  not  directly,  I  believe,  but 
most  of  them  have  sold  their  power  for 
either  good  or  evil,  by  an  unrestrained 
abuse  of  their  privileges. 

Even  in  Massachusetts,  Garrison,  Phil 
lips,  Webster,  and  Sumner  were  all  of  them 
insulted  and  humiliated  in  their  own  State 
102 


American  Politics 


and  by  their  own  constituents.     I  presume 
that  there  are  some  bad  men  in  American 
politics,  and  no  doubt  they  deserve   casti- 
gation  at  the  hands  of  the  newspapers  ; 
but  surely  it  is  a  pity  that  the  intelligent 
foreigner  should  be  led  to  believe,  by  the  is  ever 
general   tone   of  the   public  press  in  this   Ve 
country,  that  every  politician  is  a  rascal. 

This  state  of  things  is  due,  first,  to  the 
intense  and  widespread  envy  of  success 
which  is  noticeable  here  in  all  departments 
of  life;  and  second,  to  the  fact  that  un 
doubtedly  an  ever  larger  number  of  men, 
particularly  in  the  State  and  federal 
senates,  procure  their  elections,  or  are 
supposed  to  procure  their  elections,  by  the 
direct  use  of,  or  the  indirect  influence  of, 
their  money,  or  that  of  their  friends.  At 
any  rate,  it  is  certainly  true  that  the  per 
centage  of  rich  men  in  the  United  States 
Senate  to-day  is  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  wealth  of  their  constituents. 

The  federal  senators  are  elected  not 
directly  by  the  people,  but  indirectly  by 
the  State  legislatures.  The  State  legislat 
ures  are  a  smaller,  and  more  easily  influ- 

103 


America  and  the  Americans 

enced,  body  than  the  whole  body  of 
electors,  and  hence,  if  there  be  bribery 
and  corruption,  it  is  more  conveniently 
brought  to  bear  at  that  point. 

I  expressed  some  surprise  to  my  fellow- 
passengers  on  the  journey  to  Boston,  that 
the  constituencies  themselves  do  not  pre 
fer  to  be  represented  politically  by  their 
best  men.  "  Sometimes  they  do,"  was 
The  better  the  reply,  but  often  the  best  men  refuse  to 
serve.  They  do  not  fear  abuse  and  criti 
cism  for  themselves,  but  few  men  can  bear 
to  have  their  wives,  and  even  their  chil 
dren  and  their  servants,  surreptitiously 
photographed  and  interviewed,  and,  not 
infrequently,  maligned  and  insulted. 

When  a  man  stops  to  think  that  his 
whole  family  history  as  far  back  as  it  can 
be  traced,  that  his  personal  griefs,  that  his 
most  private  domestic  relations,  that  his 
business  and  professional  concerns,  that  his 
intimate  friends,  will  all  be  made  the  theme 
of  jest,  satire,  and  caricature,  he  hesitates 
before  offering  himself  and  all  these  for 
such  a  sacrifice. 

Another    feature    of   American  politics 

104 


American  Politics 


which  the  Americans  themselves,  with  their 
usual  indifferent  good-humor,  do  not  recog-   Sectional 
nize,  is  the  rapidly  increasing  differences 
between  the  geographical  sections  of  their 
enormous  territory. 

In  days  gone  by,  the  principal  rivalry 
was  between  Massachusetts  and  Virginia, 
representing  respectively  Northern  and 
Southern  feeling.  Now  the  rivalry  is  be 
tween  the  great  agricultural  States  of  the 
middle  West  and  the  great  manufacturing 
States  of  the  Northeast ;  between  the  silver- 
producing  States  of  the  West  and  the  gold- 
possessing  States  of  the  East ;  between  the 
States  where  wealth  and  comfort  and 
culture  are  defending  their  own  stability 
and  demanding  a  solid  foundation  of  con 
servative  finance,  and  the  States,  like 
Texas  in  the  Southwest,  and  the  farming 
communities  in  the  middle  and  Northwest 
ern  States,  where  there  is  little  money,  and 
where  the  population,  with  little  to  lose  and 
everything  to  gain,  takes  up  with  the  most 
visionary  theories  of  misunderstood  social 
ism  and  unsound  finance. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  in  this  connection 


America  and  the  Americans 

that  each  of  these  States,  no  matter  how 
great  or  how  small  the  population,  how 
rich  or  how  poor  in  natural  or  acquired 
wealth ;  no  matter  whether  its  population 
is  native  American,  or  composed  of  a 
majority  of  negroes,  or  of  lately  settled 
immigrants ;  no  matter  whether  educated 
or  illiterate,  is  represented  in  the  federal 
Senate  by  two  members,  no  less  and  no 
A  curiosity  more.  And,  according  to  the  Constitution, 
stitutio™'  no  one  of  the  States  can  be  deprived  of 
equal  representation  in  the  Senate  with 
all  the  others.  This  is  making  unequal 
things  equal  with  a  vengeance. 

As  an  instance  of  what  might  happen, 
there  are  ten  States  whose  total  population 
is  less  than  that  of  New  York  City  and  its 
environments  alone,  and  whose  total  wealth 
is  also  much  less  than  that  of  New  York 
City  ;  and  yet  they  are  represented  in  the 
United  States  Senate  by  twenty  votes, 
while  the  whole  of  New  York  State,  which 
includes  New  York  City,  has  only  two 
Theconsc-  votes.  In  short,  almost  one-fourth  of  the 
voting  power  in  the  United  States  Senate 
is  in  the  hands  of  men  who  represent  a 
106 


American  Politics 


population  smaller  than  that  of  New  York 
City.  This  is  already  a  source  of  incon 
venience,  and  might  well  become,  I  should 
think,  the  cause  of  grievances  that  could 
only  be  settled  after  a  serious  disturbance 
of  the  machinery  of  government. 

Aside  from  the  spasmodic  enthusiasm 
aroused  at  intervals  by  the  State  and  federal 
elections,  there  seems  to  be  little  interest 
taken  in  politics  by  many  Americans. 

In  England  you  are  bored  to  death  in  American 
every  smoking-room,  at  every  dinner,  and  ^cifaHn- 
at  every  club,  by  the  political  talk,  and  in 
France  there  is  a  very  lively  interest,  on 
the  part  of  almost  everybody,  in  politics, 
while  every  Italian  nowadays  is  a  politi 
cian. 

Here,  I  am  told,  in  the  large  cities,  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  get  the  very  class  of 
men  to  vote  who  have  most  at  stake  in 
the  continuance  of  good  government.  Oc 
casionally  there  is  an  outburst  of  indigna 
tion  on  the  part  of  the  better  classes,  and 
there  follows  an  overturn,  but  matters  soon 
quiet  down  again,  and  the  mice  come  back 
to  play  in  the  public  granary. 
107 


America  and  the  Americans 


One  never  hears  of  the  debauchery  of 
politics  in  the  United  States  without  hear 
ing  at  the  same  time  many  allusions  to  the 
The irhh  Irish,  and  the  solid  Irish  vote.  It  may  be 
my  ignorance  and  my  inexperience,  but 
having  seen  something  of  the  Irish  politi 
cian  in  his  native  lair,  New  York,  I  am 
bound  to  confess  that  I  found  him  an 
agreeable  fellow. 

The  native,  half-humorous,  indulgence 
of  success,  no  matter  what  its  origin,  is  ap 
plied  to  these  politicians.  If  a  man  have 
money,  and  ability  to  use  its  power,  great 
latitude  is  given  to  him  in  matters  of  per 
sonal  morality.  Sometimes  even  the  eccle 
siastical  world  is  suspected  of  overlooking 
faults  in  large  contributors,  that  are  con 
demned  mercilessly  in  the  incompetent. 
The  mass  of  the  people  get  the  notion  that 
there  is  an  element  of  "buncombe"  in 
ethics,  as  in  politics.  They  are  bewildered, 
it  may  be,  by  the  example  of  this  or  the 
other  rich  man  of  notorious  evil  life,  high 
in  the  councils  of  the  church,  or  in  society. 
The  keen  desire  for,  and  admiration  of, 
success,  and  a  rather  arbitrary  ethical  code, 

108 


American  Politics 


combine  to  make  political  chicanery  easy, 
and  organized  opposition  to  it  enormously 
difficult.  Then,  too,  these  politicians  have 
qualities  dear  to  the  American  heart :  they 
are  affable,  vulgar,  charitable  toward  the 
vices  of  others,  and  without  assumption  of 
virtue  themselves. 

The  record  of  the  Irish  during  the  last  war 
was  unsurpassed  by  that  of  any  of  the  other 
foreign  nationalities  who  took  part  in  it. 
Two  Irish  lads,  it  was,  who  printed  and  pub 
lished  the  first  edition  of  Shakespeare  pub 
lished  in  this  country,  and  the  ancestors  of 
two  of  the  presidents  of  the  United  States 
came  from  the  same  village  in  the  north 
of  Ireland. 

Pretty  much  every  other  political  party 
in  this  country  has  been  split  up  and  dis 
integrated  by  internal  dissensions  at  one 
time  or  another,  but  nobody  has  ever  suc 
ceeded  in  breaking  the  solid  columns  of  the 
Irish  Democrats,  They  hate  England,  but  The  solid 
it  would  be  strange  if  they  did  not,  and 
that  sometimes  interferes  with  the  amicable 
relations  that  ought  to  exist  between  the 
two  countries ;  but,  to  be  frank,  that  is  be- 
109 


America  and  the  Americans 

cause  the  American  politicians  are  syco 
phants  to  the  Irish  vote,  and  not  through 
any  fault  of  the  Irish — and  say  what  one 
will,  their  constant  and  unwavering  loyalty 
to  their  own  party,  and  their  own  people, 
is  rather  admirable  than  otherwise. 

The  Americans  are  in  a  large  majority 
everywhere,  and  if  they  choose  to  be  ruled, 
Whose  robbed,  and  misgoverned — as  they  claim 
to  be — by  a  minority  of  Irish  voters,  one 
can  hardly  bestow  much  sympathy  upon 
them. 

It  has  been  said  that  "  Ce  sont  les  mino- 
rites  qui  gouvernent  le  monde,  ct  c*  est  pour 
cela  que  le  monde  a  une  histoire  ;  si  la  vraie 
majorite  gouvernait,  il  ne  se  passer  ait jamais 
rien.^     Certainly  there  is  no  lack  of  excit 
ing  political  happenings  under  the  rule  of 
The  irhh      this  Hibernian  minority  here,  though  they 
CtiontoU~       cause   little  rejoicing  among  the   tax-pay - 
*° '  ing    sufferers.      The    making    of    notable 

history  must  be  like  the  American  habit 
of  broiling  live  lobsters — more  agreeable 
to  him  who  enjoys  it  afterwards  than  to 
him  who  undergoes  the  operation  at  the 
time. 

no 


American  Politics 


To  the  traveller  who  comes  here  to  look 
on  and  to  note  impressions,  this  bullying  of 
the  natives  by  the  vivacious  Celts  from  the 
Emerald  Isle  is  only  another  example  of 
the  national  good-humor  and  indifference. 
"Let  me  make  my  pile,  and  you  may  do 
what  you  like  with  the  municipal  and  the 
federal  government!"  seems  to  be  the 
general  sentiment.  If  the  natives  can  make 
thousands,  they  will  not  bother  to  punish 
those  who  steal  hundreds.  Call  it  indiffer 
ence,  good-humor,  recklessness,  what  you 
will,  it  is  their  own  doing.  They  have  no 
right  to  complain.  They  deserve  to  be  is  this  in 
robbed  and  bullied  and  made  uncomfort-  dtm 
able.  Perhaps  some  day  they  will  arouse 
themselves  from  their  scramble  for  wealth, 
and  begin  to  think  of  governing  themselves. 
Nowadays,  this  is  merely  an  autocracy  of 
those  who  will  do  the  dirty  machine-work, 
not  a  republic. 


in 


IX 

A  Visit  to   Boston 

[HEN  I  made  it  known  to  my 
New  York  friends    that  I   was 
soon  to   visit  Boston,    the  ad 
vice,    suggestions,    and    com 
ments  that  I  received  were  very  amusing. 

I  was  told  that  as  soon  as  the  train  crossed 
Phiihtine  the  line  into  New  England,  I  should  hear 
*£o£oilf  very  little  English,  as  almost  everybody 
spoke  Latin  or  Greek;  the  theatres  pre 
sented  only  Greek  plays,  and  nowadays 
Ibsen's  comedies ;  no  smoking  and  no 
swearing  were  permitted  in  the  streets ;  the 
ladies  wore  blue  veils  and  eye-glasses  ;  the 
men  spoke  English  of  the  most  British  de 
scription,  and  wore  their  sheepskin  de 
grees  from  Harvard  College  instead  of 
shirt-fronts  ;  little  boys  might  be  seen  go 
ing  through  the  streets  in  procession,  to 
present  petitions  to  the  Governor  that 
school  hours  might  be  lengthened ;  at  the 

112 


A  Visit  to  Boston 


principal  clubs  there  were  debates,  three 
evenings  in  the  week,  on  metaphysical 
subjects ;  several  of  the  churches  had  wom 
en  pastors,  who  wore  ' '  bloomers ' '  in  the 
pulpit;  at  evening  parties,  after  the  dis 
cussion  of  a  paper  read  by  a  Harvard  pro 
fessor,  Apollinaris  and  iced  -  cream  were 
served,  and  at  very  swell  houses,  "  club 
soda;"  New  York  people  only  visited 
Boston  when  in  deep  mourning,  since  no 
entertainment  there  made  such  habiliments 
seem  out  of  place. 

I  was  warned  to  express  no  surprise  at 
the  colossal  procreative  energies  of  the 
passengers  on  the  Mayflower  when  the  The  May- 

i  -  flowers 

stupendous  number  of  their  descendants  fecundity. 
was  made  known  to  me;  and  I  was  ad 
vised,  that  if  I  wished  to  be  popular  in 
Boston,  nothing  could  serve  my  purpose 
better  than  to  mistake  Bunker  Hill  Monu 
ment  for  a  monolith,  and  to  sigh  over  the 
social  frivolity  and  the  intellectual  bar 
renness  of  New  York. 

I  believe  it  to  be  true,  that  when  any   Truth  and 
large  number  of  people  in  any  part  of  the  humor' 
world   acquire  a  reputation  for  eccentric- 


America  and  the  Americans 

ity,  even  though  humor  has  exaggerated 
that  reputation,  there  is  likely  to  be  truth 
in  the  characterization. 

At  a  dinner  in  New  York  I  had  met  a 
wealthy  Bostonian  and  his  wife.  The  day 
after  my  arrival  in  Boston  I  called  upon 
them,  as  they  had  requested,  and  that  same 
evening  I  was  transferred,  bag  and  baggage, 
to  their  very  handsome  residence.  This 
was  on  a  Thursday,  and  I  am  to  be  their 
guest  until  Monday. 

Now  it  may  have  been  a  coincidence — 
at  the  time  I  know  that  I  was  inclined  to 
suspect  that  it  was  a  hoax,  suggested  to  my 
hostess  by  my  friends  in  New  York — but 
on  Saturday  morning  I  was  invited  by  my 
hostess  to  go  with  her  to  attend  a  reading 
The  from  Browning.  Until  we  were  actually 

in  the    hal^   and  the    reading   had  begun,   j 

still  cherished  the  hope  that  it  was  all  a 
joke.  But  it  was  no  joke.  For  an  hour 
and  a  half  a  young  gentleman,  very  prettily 
dressed,  and  wearing  a  conspicuous  num 
ber  of  finger-rings,  read  selections  from 
Browning  to  us.  After  the  reading  I  was 
presented  to  a  few  of  the  ladies,  and  in  a 
114 


-  -    : 


:    :    : 


-     ":"     :-: 

- 

:    - ...:        - 


-.-  : 


" 


:     : 


America  and  the  Americans 


I  beg  off. 


Boston's 
•weekly  so 
cial  re 
hearsal. 


On  two  other  occasions  during  my  short 
stay  I  was  invited  to  attend,  once  an 
evening  lecture,  and  once  another  reading, 
this  time  from  Thucydides,  by  a  young 
college  professor;  but  as  I  excused  my 
self  on  the  plea  of  insufficient  acquaintance 
with  the  English  language  to  appreciate 
these  forms  of  entertainment,  I  have  no 
means  of  judging  of  their  quality  or  in 
terest. 

On  Friday  afternoon,  however,  I  at 
tended  a  concert,  or  a  "  rehearsal,"  I  be 
lieve  it  was  called,  where  again  the  au 
dience  was  almost  wholly  composed  of 
women.  This,  I  was  told,  was  a  Boston  in 
stitution — a  sort  of  musical  afternoon-tea, 
where  every  Friday  during  the  winter 
months,  Boston  inspects  Boston  through 
its  eye-glasses,  and,  at  the  same  time,  makes 
attestation  to  itself  of  its  love  of  culture 
manifesting  itself  in  musical  guise.  Let  us 
before  all  things  be  fair,  and  add,  that 
though  such  a  matter  may  lend  itself  to  the 
exaggerations  of  humor  on  the  part  of  the 
New  York  barbarians  outside  of  the  mod 
ern  Athens,  it  is  undoubtedly  the  most  care' 
116 


A  Visit  to  Boston 


fully  planned,  and  best,  musical  treat  to  be 
had  in  America.  Boston  rather  prides 
itself  on  some  of  its  peculiarities  while 
others  laugh,  and  with  some  show  of  reason. 

From  the  days  of  the  Illuminati,  of  one 
hundred  years  ago,  to  the   Ibsenism   and 
neo-Buddhism  of  to-day,  Boston  has  been 
the  prey  of  all  sorts   of  mental    frenzies.    Some  of 
This  is  the  home  of  the  Transcendental! sts  fads. 
in  philosophy,  of  the  Deists  in  theology,  of 
the  "  Mugwumps"  in  politics,  of  Fourier- 
ism  in  sociology. 

It  was  not  far  from  here  that  the  "  Brook 
Farm  Movement  "   attempted  to  put  into 
practice  the  theories  of  our  French  social 
ists  of  half  a  century  ago.     Here  manual  Socialism 
labor  was  to  be  leavened  by  the  intellectual  nptcy. 
life,   and  everything  in  common    resulted 
in  nothing  in  particular,  except  debts. 

The  abolition  movement  did  not  begin 
here,  though  it  was  here  that  a  mob  of 
respectable  gentlemen  led  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  about  the  streets  with  a  rope 
around  his  waist ;  here,  also,  that  the  aris 
tocratic  part  of  the  community  ridiculed 
Governor  Andrew  for  drilling  and  pre- 
117 


America  and  the  Americans 

paring  the  State  militia  in  anticipation  of 
the  War  of  the  Rebellion. 

Boston  also  has  the  honor,  a  doubtful 
one,  of  having  been  the  only  community 
to  insult  Washington  through  the  person 
of  its  chief  magistrate,  when  Washington 
journeyed  through  the  country  after  his 
election  as  President. 

Though  this  part  of  the  world  has  some 

Literary  serious  defects  of  its  qualities,  it  is  fair  to 
say  that  its  qualities,  some  of  them,  are  of  a 
very  distinguished  kind.  The  little  knot 
of  men  who  brought  American  literature 
into  prominence  were  New  England  men — 
Longfellow,  Lowell,  Emerson,  Whittier, 
Hawthorne,  Thoreau,  Holmes,  Poe,  and 
others  of  less  note,  were  all  native  New 
Englanders,  and  all  practically  contem 
poraries.  It  would  be  difficult  to  match 
such  a  literary  crop  in  one  season,  as  that, 
anywhere  else  in  the  world. 

Boston's  The    Revolution   would   have  been    im 

possible,  and  the  Rebellion  next  to  im 
possible,  without  New  England's  aid.  It 
is  well  for  the  rest  of  America  to  remember 
these  things,  but  it  would  be  perhaps  more 
118 


re  minis* 
ccnccs. 


A  Visit  to  Boston 


dignified  of  New  Englanders  not  to  do  so 
much  in  the  way  of  reminding  others  of 
their  importance  in  the  past. 

The  decayed  gentlewoman  who  is  con- 
tinually  recalling  to  us  her  past,  produces 
the  effect  upon  -her  less  sympathetic  lis 
teners  of  making  them  to  wish  that  decay 
were  more  rapid. 

New  York,  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  and 
Kansas  City  are  of  this  class  of  listeners 
when  Boston  begins  to  give  the  details  of 
her  former  services.  After  a  fortnight  of 
Boston,  Cambridge,  Concord,  and  Plym 
outh,  one  begins  to  understand  the  un 
sympathetic,  not  to  say  weary,  attitude  of 
Boston's  neighbors  of  less  famous  pedigree. 

Though  the  learning  and  culture  are  not 
so  general,  nor  so  conspicuous  to  the  man 
in  the  street,  as  I  was  led  to  expect,  there 
is  no  joke  about  the  air  of  chastened  su 
periority  which  pervades  the  people.  It  is 
based  on  little  enough  now,  for  literature 
has  flown  to  New  York,  and  commerce  has 
followed  close  after,  while  enterprise  has 
gone  West,  and  the  political  centre  of  grav 
ity  has  moved  elsewhere. 
119 


America  and  the  Americans 

Boston  reached  a  certain  level,  socially 
and  intellectually,  before  any  of  her  rivals, 
Social  pro-  but  she  seems  to  have  stayed  there ;  hence 
to_day  ^Q  foreigner  is  confronted  with  the 
population  of  a  city,  in  the  social  and  lit 
erary  short  jacket  and  knickerbockers  of 
a  country  town.  The  leaders  of  thought 
and  action  and  fashion  are  no  longer  to 
be  met  with  in  Boston.  The  great  houses 
socially  are  conducted  by — in  the  three  or 
four  principal  cases — men  and  women  who 
are  as  grand  fatherless  as  their  friends  in 
New  York.  The  entertainments  of  the  more 
ambitious  social  set  lack  brilliancy,  because 
there  is  a  dearth  of  variety  in  the  guests. 

Poor  Mr.  McAllister's  famous  "  Four 
Hundred  ' '  is  cut  down  to  fourscore  here, 
and  as  the  very  essence  of  society  is  to  be 
exclusive,  exclusiveness  here  necessarily  re 
sults  in  entertainments  of  the  ghastly  char 
acter  of  church  sociables,  only  with  more 
gilding. 

I  attended  four  dinners,  at  which  the 
i-  smallest  number  of  guests  was  twelve,  the 
largest  twenty-six  or  twenty-eight.  At  all 
four  were  my  host  and  hostess  ;  and  at  all 
120 


A  Visit  to  Boston 


four  was  one  man,  and  at  three  two  men, 
who  seemed  to  be  invited  to  every  dinner 
in  Boston. 

Not  that  it  was  not  agreeable  to  meet 
these  same  people  everywhere,  but  in  what 
other  capital  which  assumes  such  impor 
tance  is  there  such  a  dearth  of  social  va 
riety?  You  really  began  to  feel  as  though  intimacies. 
you  lived  in  the  same  house  with  these  peo 
ple,  and  to  understand  how  it  is  that  so 
many  people  in  Boston  call  one  another  by 
their  petits  noms.  The  constant  reference 
to  "Mrs.  Jim,"  "Mrs.  Billy,"  "Mrs. 
Dick;"  and  to  "Bob,"  "Nat,"  "Tom," 
and  "Jim,"  which  at  first  seemed  an  af 
fectation,  ceased  to  be  that,  and  I  under 
stood  that  it  was  the  natural  outcome  of 
the  charming  familiarity  of  a  country  town. 

The  conversation,  too,  was,  much  of  the 
time,  a  conversation  a  clef,  so  far  as  I  was 
concerned.  The  petits  noms  corresponded 
to  the  petites  affaires,  which  interested 
them,  and  made  up  the  stock  pieces  of 
their  talk.  They  had  all  travelled,  they  all 
go  frequently  to  New  York,  and  when  the 
conversation  was  directed  to  me,  personally, 

121 


America  and  the  Americans 

there  was  some  effort  at  orientation,  but 
when  they  talked  to  one  another,  it  was  al 
ways  in  the  pleasant  and  familiar  jargon, 
and  with  the  understood  allusions,  of  a 
party  of  peasants  at  a  picnic. 

Nor  is  this  circumscribed  and  monoto- 
Doubtfui  nous  social  life  a  characteristic  noticed  by 
*fk?kome0^  foreigners  alone.  When  I  met  people  at 
Cambridge,  and  elsewhere,  who  were  not 
frequenters  of  this  small  circle,  I  found  that 
even  their  own  neighbors  realized  that  Bos 
ton  lost,  rather  than  gained,  by  the  pro 
vincialism  of  its  chief  entertainers.  But 
this  may  have  been  jealousy  on  their  part ; 
one  can  never  be  sure  as  to  that,  unless  one 
lives  for  years  in  a  community.  My  short 
visits  to  America  enable  me  merely  to  be  a 
chronicler  of  what  I  saw  and  heard,  and 
not  a  critic  of  the  Boston ians  or  of  any 
other  people  of  whom  I  write. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied,  however,  that  there 
A  longitu-  seems  to  be  more  heart-burning,  morestriv- 
ing  and  pushing,  more  juggling  for  social 
opportunity,  here  than  elsewhere.  One  long 
and  beautiful  avenue  is,  from  all  accounts, 
a  longitudinal  cemetery  of  buried  social 

122 


A  Vhit  to  Boston 


hopes,  with  fine  residences  standing  as  oc 
cupied  monuments.  Here  have  flocked  the 
families  who,  having  made  money,  expected 
that  by  taking  up  their  abodes  along  this 
avenue  they  would  be  that  much  nearer  the 
social  citadel ;  but,  alas  !  for  them,  they 
stormed  successfully  this  first  line  of  breast 
works  only  to  find  their  progress  indefi 
nitely  delayed  there. 

Pelts  and  pellets,  whiskey  and  patent 
medicines,  pork  and  beef,  reapers  and  oil- 
wells,  may  land  those  who  benefit  largely 
enough  from  them  in  the  inner  social  circle 
at  New  York  or  Chicago,  but  not  so  here 
— so  it  is  claimed,  at  least. 

In  New  York  and  Washington  one  hears 
certain  residential  districts  spoken  of  as 
unfashionable,  but  it  is  done  in  a  joking 
way,  and  in  their  social  life  there,  though 
not  to  the  same  extent  as  in  European  cap 
itals,  one  meets  the  men  and  women  who  People  i  did 
have  made  their  mark  in  art,  literature,  fi 
nance,  the  Church,  the  State,  or  at  the  bar. 
But,  in  Boston,  society  is  markedly  lacking 
in  this  salt  of  variety. 

I  was  astonished  to  find  that  of  the  half 
123 


America  and  the  Americans 

a  dozen  men  in  and  about  Boston  whom  I, 
a  foreigner,  had  heard  of  and  wanted  to 
meet,  not  one  was  to  be  met  with  at  such 
houses  as  I  visited.  Even  the  social  stand 
by,  of  whom  at  least  one  specimen  is  always 
present  at  a  French  or  English  or  Italian, 
and  often  at  a  New  York,  dinner-table,  the 
clergyman,  was  absent. 

The  names  of  the  President  of  Harvard 
College  and  of  two  of  its  professors,  of  one 
clergyman,  one  banker,  and  one  railway 
magnate,  in  Boston,  were  familiar  to  me. 
Social  life  But  I  was  told  that  none  of  these  appeared 
"'society*  in  Boston  society.  The  president,  profess- 
ors,  and  the  clergyman  because  they  did 
not  care  to  do  so,  and  the  banker  and  the 
railway  magnate  because,  for  some  occult 
reason,  they  were  not  asked.  And  yet  if 
these  six  men  were  taken  out  of  Boston,  it 
would  be  with  difficulty  that  they  could  be 
replaced. 

I  met  them  all  six  during  my  visit,  but 
it  was  because  I  went  to  them,  and  not 
because  they  appeared  in  the  society  to 
which  I  was  introduced  from  Paris  and 
New  York.  My  host  knew  them  all,  but 
124 


A  Visit  to  Boston 


though  I  mentioned  several  times  my  pur 
pose  to  see  them,  it  was  very  apparent  that 
they,  and  their  wives,  were  not  convenient 
to  entertain.  He  met  them  in  one  capac 
ity  or  another,  some  of  them  frequently, 
but  he  and  his  wife  did  not  meet  them  and 
their  wives.  This  all  seemed  to  me  very 
stupid,  but  I  suppose  that  is  because  I  am 
stupid,  for  "stupid"  is  the  last  word  that 
a  Bostonian  ever  applies  to  himself  or  to 
the  institutions  he  upholds. 


125 


X 

Class  Distinctions 

I  HEN  one  visits  a  community 
which  claims  to  have  given 
particular  attention  to  the 
rocking  of  the  cradle  of  Lib 
erty,  one  expects  to  find  in  that  commun 
ity  signs  of  the  vigor  of  the  child  Liberty 
at  the  advanced  age  of  one  hundred  years. 
It  is  startling  to  find  then,  that,  of  all 
places,  the  churches  are  the  very  citadels 
of  class  distinctions. 

After  I  had  attended  to  my  own  devo 
tions  early  in   the   morning,  I  was  taken 
Boston  at       to  one  of  the  oldest  churches  in  Boston. 
Here   the   pews   are   all    owned,    actually 
owned,  by  the  worshippers,  who  can  dis 
pose  of  them  to  their  heirs  like  any  other 
property.    As  this  congregation  assembled, 
the  different  families  marched  in  procession 
to  their  seats — or  pews,  as  they  are  called 
126 


Class  Distinctions 


here — walked  in,  and  shut  and  locked  the 
doors  behind  them. 

This  is  the  hi^h-water  mark  of  exclusive- 

.        cal  excln- 

ness,  so  far  as  my  experience  of  the  world 
goes.  No  club,  no  theatre,  no  society,  no 
office,  is  more  completely  in  the  hands  of 
its  possessors.  You  can  be  elected  even 
to  the  French  Academy  if  you  merit  it ; 
even  the  President  of  the  United  States 
must  open  his  official  residence  to  the 
people  from  time  to  time,  and  shake  hands 
with  whosoever  comes,  but  in  these  houses 
of  God  in  Boston,  membership  may  con 
tinue  a  family  affair,  like  the  throne  of 
England  or  Russia.  When  this  aristocratic 
ecclesiastical  arrangement  was  explained  to 
me,  my  astonishment  was  unbounded,  but 
none  of  my  informants  seemed  to  share 
my  astonishment. 

The  vulgarity  and  the  blasphemous  com 
mercial  aspect  of  the  whole  thing  seemed 
not  to  appear  to  them.  Why  there 
should  not  be  "job -lots,"  "bargains," 
"  booms,"  and  "  corners  "  in  the  matter  of 
"salvation,"  as  in  other  affairs,  they  evi 
dently  do  not  understand.  At  the  large 
127 


America  and  the  Americans 

church  I  attended  in  the  afternoon,  the 
pews  were,  I  was  told,  rented  in  much  the 
same  fashion,  though  there  were  no  little 
doors  to  lock,  as  in  the  first  church  I  at 
tended. 

The  clergymen  who  preside  over   these 

institutions  are  paid  a  regular  salary,  and 

dismissed  at  the  option  of  the  pew-owners 

strange po-    and  pew-renters.  They  have,  of  course,  no 

sit  ion  of  the  i     r        j  L\  i_       i 

clergy.  more  actual  freedom  than  a  butler  or  a 
coachman.  If  they  do  not  preach  what  is 
wanted,  or  if  they  do  not  conduct  them 
selves,  socially  and  politically,  to  the  taste 
of  their  masters,  they  can  be  summarily 
dismissed  at  a  few  months'  notice. 

I  asked  how  it  was  that  priests  who  as 
sume  the  power  to  pronounce  absolution 
and  forgiveness  are  at  the  same  time  prac 
tically  without  power  even  to  retain  their 
The  shcp-  places,  or  to  pronounce  their  flock  right  or 
wrong,  since  the  sheep  have  only  to  get  to 
gether  and  vote  to  eject  the  shepherd  from 
the  fold  when  it  pleases  them  so  to  do. 

It  was  admitted  that  this  was  apparently 
a  strange  anomaly,  but  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  is  seldom  any  difficulty  in  re- 
128 


Class  Distinctions 


placing  a  shepherd.  On  the  contrary,  many 
shepherds  apply  for  every  vacant  fold,  and 
often  there  are  regular  political  caucuses, 
and  much  manoeuvring  by  the  friends  of 
this  shepherd,  or  that,  to  get  him  elected. 
Shepherds  of  other  folds,  smaller  or  less 
lucrative,  often  write,  and  ask  to  be  allowed 
to  present  themselves  for  the  suffrage  of  a 
larger  or  wealthier  fold  which  is  known  to 
be  vacant. 

So  universal  is  this  club -like  manage 
ment  and  exclusiveness  of  the  churches, 
that  the  audiences  you  see  in  them  are  as 
fashionably  dressed  as  the  audience  at  a 
first-rate  theatre.  No  poor  people  ever 

man  at 

think  of  attending  them,  any  more  than  church, 
they  think  of  entering  a  fashionable  club. 

Often  these  wealthy  ecclesiastical  clubs 
have  "chapels"  or  "missions"  in  other 
parts  of  the  city,  to  which  the  poor  are 
supposed  to  go,  but  to  which,  as  a  rule,  the 
self-respecting  poor — and  rightly  so — will 
not  go.  Those  who  do  go  are  the  syco 
phants,  who  go  in  order  to  fawn  upon,  and 
get  money  and  clothes  and  fuel  from,  the 
representatives  of  the  rich  families  who 
129 


America  and  the  Americans 

go  there  to  teach,  or  to  assist  at  the  ser 
vices. 

Said  my  clerical  friend  to  me:  "Those 
chapels  and  missions  of  the  rich  city 
churches  are  hot-beds  of  hypocrisy,  jeal 
ousy,  and  sycophancy.  I  would  not  go  to 
one  if  I  were  a  poor  man,  and  I  have  little 
respect  for  the  poor  man  who  does." 

"  Where  do  the  poor  go,  and  who  looks 

after  them,   then?"    I  inquired.      "Your 

clerical       people  and  the  Salvation  Army  look  after 

comment.         them  spirituaHVj  go  far  ^  it  ig  done  at  ajl_ 

and  it  is  to  be  remembered  in  this  con 
nection  that  fifty-six  per  cent,  of  the  total 
white  population  of  America  is  not  iden 
tified  with  any  church,  and  that  thirty- 
six  per  cent,  of  these  belong  to  the  poorer 
class — and  we  Protestants  contribute  large 
ly  toward  their  material  support.  Why, 
The  many  of  these  churches,"  he  continued, 

CandCsocLi     "are  just  as  easily  defined    socially  as  the 
prest,ge.       c\u^      This  set  of  people  go  to  one,  that 
set  go  to  another,  and  so  on  ;  and  people  get 
into  them,  and  go  to  them,   very  often  for 
the  chance  of  the  social  recognition   that 
may  follow  from  such  attendance." 
130 


Class  Distinctions 


With  all  that,  I,  as  a  foreigner,  have 
nothing  to  do.  It  is  another  of  the  many 
problems  that  the  Americans  have  to  solve 
for  themselves.  The  subject  interests  me 
only  as  another  phase  of  the  unrepublican  Pas  mon 
state  of  affairs  here.  It  interests  me  also, 
as  showing  how  here  again  the  theory  re 
sults  in  the  most  deplorable  practice,  and 
yet  the  people  themselves,  with  their  cus 
tomary  good-humored  indifference,  pass  it 
by  and  neglect  it. 

Advertisements  of  summer  villas,  of 
yachts,  and  of  second-hand  carriages  ap 
pear  side  by  side  with  the  advertisements 
of  "centrally  located"  pews  to  rent  in  this- 
or  that  fashionable  church.  One  man  was 
pointed  out  to  me,  in  Boston,  who  sub-let 
pews  in  three  different  churches,  and  made  Bulls  and 
"  a  good  thing  out  of  all  of  them,"  as  my  c**rv*. 
friend  expressed  it.  One  can  fancy  it  to  be 
quite  in  keeping  with  the  American  genius 
for  trading,  to  pick  up  a  job-lot  of  pews 
in  a  church,  then  to  "boom"  the  church, 
and  sub-let  the  pews  at  an  advance. 

I  am  not  aware  that  there  are  actually 
brokers  who  devote  themselves  exclusively 


America  and  the  Americans 

to  this  business,  but  there  is  no  reason  on 
the  face  of  things  as  here  conducted  why 
there  should  not  be.  At  any  rate,  you 
often  hear  clergymen  spoken  of  as  having 
stnck-mar-  "  great  drawing  power,"  meaning  that  they 
a^nilifster.  attract  large  audiences,  who  buy  or  rent 
pews,  and  thus  keep  the  church  exchequer 
full.  Twice  in  the  newspapers  I  have  seen 
notices  of  the  dismissal  of  clergymen  be 
cause  they  could  not  "  fill"  their  churches, 
and  thus  meet  expenses. 

When  I  think  of  the  two  priests  in  my 
own  parish,  and  of  the  pittance  that  they 
receive,  and  of  the  small  "  drawing  power  " 
My  "Man-    they  possess,  and  yet  of  the  boundless  good 
Curt.* e       they  do,  and  the  endless  services  they  ren 
der  our  small  community,  I  wonder  how 
long  either  one  of  them  would  consent  to 
remain  in  a  parish  where  his  services  were 
measured  by  the  receipts  at  the  door,  as 
though  he  were  a  leading  performer  in  a 
theatrical    troupe.     This   system   must  be 
galling  to  the  devoted  clergy,  as  it  certainly 
is  productive  of  the  most  cynical  worldli- 
ness  in  those  who  are  callous  or  indifferent. 
Here  again  the   good-humored    laisser- 

132 


Class  Distinctions 


aller  policy  of  the  Americans  reveals  itself. 
The  clerical  mountebanks  are  ridiculed,  clerical 
sneered  at,  and,  in  some  quarters,  openly  'banks!' 
despised,  and  yet  crowds  go  to  hear  them 
and  to  laugh  at  their  jokes  ;  they  go  to 
pray,  and  remain  to  scoff.  They  are  ap 
plauded  but  not  trusted,  as  in  the  case  of 
some  of  the  American  publicists.  In  fact, 
if  a  man  is  widely  popular  in  America,  if 
he  be  much  applauded,  and  have  many 
followers  and  many  listeners,  you  may  set 
him  down,  in  two  out  of  four  cases,  as  be 
ing  a  man  whom  the  people  secretly  dis 
trust. 

This  is  a  peculiar  state  of  affairs,  but  it 
is  borne  out  by  the  fact  that  it  is  becoming 
more  and  more  difficult  to  nominate  for 
election  to  the  presidency  of  the  United  The  case  oj 
States  a  really  first-class  man.  Since  the  %&?*' 
first  six  presidents,  with  the  one  very  nota 
ble  exception  of  Abraham  Lincoln — and 
even  in  his  case  he  was  not  known  to  the 
people  when  they  elected  him — there  has 
not  been  elected  to  the  office  of  chief  mag 
istrate  a  single  individual  of  first-rate  pow 
ers,  while  some  who  have  filled  the  office 

133 


America  and  the  Americans 


have  been,  as  in  the  case  of  Taylor,  Bu 
chanan,  Pierce,  Polk,  Hayes,  and  the  first 
Harrison,  men  of  very  second-rate  abilities 
indeed.  Some  of  these  presidents  after 
election  however  have  proved  themselves 
to  be  unexpectedly  capable. 

Another    very  palpable    reason    for   the 
growing  divergence  of  classes  in  this  coun 
try   is   the  rapidly  growing  popularity   of 
Public  and    the   private,  as  distinct    from  the  public, 

private  11*  i      i  r 

sckoois.  schools.  A  century,  or  even  halt  a  century, 
ago  the  boys  of  any  community,  rich  and 
poor  alike,  went  to  school  and  to  college 
together,  and  knew  one  another  intimately 
all  through  their  boyhood  and  youth. 

There  was  less  jealousy  and  less  suspic 
ion  between  classes  then,  because  the  boys 
were  educated  together,  and  also  because 
Growing       there  were  not  then,  as  now,  such  vast  dif- 
^ttveenrich     ferences   of  wealth   between  the  rich  and 
poor.      t^e    poor.       All    the   people    lived    more 
nearly  on  the  same  level.      In  the  days  of 
Washington,  the  two  Adamses,  and  Jeffer 
son,  the  youths  of  the  land  were  educated 
along    the   same   lines,  and    in    the   same 
schools. 

134 


Class  Distinctions 


To-day  all  that  is  changed.  The  public 
schools  in  the  large  cities  are  attended  by 
the  children  of  the  poor  almost  exclusively, 
while  the  children  of  the  well-to-do  are 
sent  to  private  schools — some  of  them  on  Tkeprtvate 
the  plan  of  the  great  English  public  schools 
— where  the  fees  and  expenses  for  one  boy's 
schooling  for  a  year  range  from  2,500  to 
5,000  francs. 

These  schools  are  quite  out  of  reach  of 
even  people  with  moderate  incomes.  This 
is  a  severe  blow  at  the  theory  of  popular 
education,  and  strikes  also  at  the  very  heart 
of  the  republican  theory,  that  all  should 
profit  by  the  same  educational  opportuni 
ties.  Instead  of  this,  there  is  rapidly  grow 
ing  an  aristocracy  of  education.  This  aris 
tocracy  of  the  private  schools  distrusts  the 
democracy  of  the  public  schools,  and  the 
democracy  of  the  public  schools  is  suspi 
cious,  and  often  jealous,  of  the  aristocracy 
of  the  private  schools.  They  do  not  meet, 
they  do  not  know  one  another,  they  have 
little  in  common  with  one  another,  and 
they  vote  against  one  another. 

An  educated,  well-trained,  and   honest 

135 


America  and  the  Americans 

gentleman,  who  would  be  the  very  best  ser 
vant  of  the  poor,  because  he  knows  what 
they  do  not  know,  and  because  he  would 
neither  rob  them  nor  wilfully  deceive 
them,  is  often  cut  off  from  political  service 
because  those  who  ought  to  be  his  constitu 
ents  do  not  know  him,  and  distrust  him 
mainly  because  he  is  not  one  of  them. 

It  is  perhaps  true  that  in  France,  Eng 
land,  and  Germany  the  rich  and  the  poor 
are  not  educated  together — much  less 
so  in  France  and  Germany  than  in  Eng- 
ciassdh-  land — but  the  various  classes  are  not  so 
%nutop™ in  unacquainted  with  one  another,  not  on 
such  self-conscious  and  restrained  terms 
with  one  another  as  they  are  here.  They 
meet  oftener,  strange  to  say,  on  a  common 
basis,  of  every  man  on  his  individual  merit, 
without  regard  to  rank,  position,  or  fortune, 
than  here. 

Germany.  In  Germany  they  are  educated  together, 
because  there  the  public  schools  and  uni 
versities,  which  are  open  to  all,  and  very 
cheap,  are  better  than  any  private  educa 
tional  institutions. 

The  same  is  true  of  France,  and  in  both 

136 


Class  Distinctions 


France  and   Germany  they  serve  side  by  France. 
side  in  the  army. 

In  England  they  know  one  another  in 
the  army  and  navy,  and  they  meet  one  an 
other  continually  in  the  hunting- field,  at 
cricket  and  foot-ball,  and  in  the  country, 
and  out-of-door  life,  lived  by  so  many  Eng-  England. 
lish  people.  The  English  laborer  touches 
his  hat  to  the  village  squire,  but  he  is,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  on  far  friendlier,  and  even 
more  intimate,  terms  with  him  than  is  the 
American  millionnaire  with  any  man,  or 
men,  of  similar  position  in  his  neighbor 
hood. 

In  France,  especially,  but  in  England 
and  Italy  also,  your  servants  are  your 
friends,  sometimes  very  dear  friends ;  but 
there  is  none  of  that  here,  just  where  one 
might  expect  it.  They  do  not  take  care 
of  one  another  here,  in  the  case  of  masters 
and  servants,  as  I  delight  to  take  care  of  servants 
old  Francois  at  home,  and  he  delights  to 
take  care  of  me,  only  in  different  capacities  ; 
they  do  not  even  care  for  one  another ; 
they  simply  hire  and  are  hired. 

In  Europe  there  is  a  traditional  feeling 

137 


America  and  the  Americans 

of  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the  power 
ful  for  the  weak,  of  the  rich  for  the  poor. 
The  squire's  house  is  often  the  hospital, 
the  bank,  and  the  asylum  for  his  poorer 
neighbors.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
American  millionnaire — with  exceptions, 
notable  exceptions  indeed — is  the  most 
heedlessly  irresponsible  magnate  that  the 
world  has  seen  since  the  days  of  feudalism. 
The  enormous  establishments  maintained 
by  French,  English,  and  Austrian  men  of 
wealth  are  laughed  at  here,  but  often 
Responsi-  enough  they  represent  the  responsibility 
weayitL  those  men  feel  to  their  neighborhood  and 
their  neighbors,  and  are  far  more  demo 
cratic  than  the  wasteful  luxury  of  Amer 
ica's  rich  men  and  women,  who  recognize 
no  such  responsibility  to  any  neighborhood 
or  to  any  neighbors. 

One  comes  to  feel  here  that  no  art  is 
more  difficult  than  the  art  of  being  rich. 
This  country  needs  a  number  of  univer 
sities  devoted  solely  to  such  instruction. 
"Beggars  mounted  run  their  horse  to 
death."  It  is  the  rich  as  well  as  the  poor 
who  are  making  this  republic  a  land  of 

138 


Class  Distinctions 


class  distinctions,  a  land  of  privileges,  a 
land  of  social  and  political  jealousies. 
Minor  and  official  distinctions  of  class,  of 
creed,  of  service,  of  rank,  are  largely  ob 
literated,  it  is  true,  but  nowhere  in  the  Heedless 
world  is  the  line  so  rudely  drawn  between  rS 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  between  the  master 
and  the  menial,  between  the  workers  who 
do  not  use  their  hands  and  the  laborers 
who  do,  as  here. 

In  Europe  there  is  great  diversity  of 
striving;  men  are  working  for  different 
ends ;  many  men  know  when  they  have 
enough,  and  drop  out  of  the  race,  to  live 
contentedly  on  what  they  have. 

But  not  so  in  America.  The  word 
"enough"  is  the  loneliest,  and  the  least  wealth  the 
often  employed,  word  in  the  American  °ard. *a 
vocabulary.  There  is  no  diversity  of  striv 
ing;  all  are  striving  for  money,  money, 
money.  This  makes  the  race  fast  and  fu 
rious,  and  competition  and  rivalry  bitter, 
and  not  always  honorable.  Money  here 
is  tyrant,  as  it  is  tyrant  nowhere  else. 
Men  will  do  for  money  here  what  men 
will  do  for  money  nowhere  else. 

139 


America  and  the  Americans 

In  Europe  men  are  divided  into  many 
classes,   and  these    different  classes    have 
their  particular  rivalries  and  competitions. 
The  scram-    Here  all  men  are  in  the  one  colossal  class  J 
dollars.         of  the  money-makers,  all  fighting  one  ai^j/ 
other,  all  fearful  of  one  another,  and  all  rec 
ognizing   but   one    class   distinction — that 
between  those   who  have  and  those  who 
have  not. 

It  cannot  surely  be  long  before  this 
state  of  things  must  crystallize  into  politi 
cal  parties.  Heretofore  men  have  divided 
along  political  lines,  soon  they  will  divide 
along  social  lines ;  and  then,  if  I  mistake 
not,  the  national  barometer  will  begin  go 
ing  down  toward  a  point  marked  The 
Deluge. 

I  find  myself  surprised  at  myself  in  mak- 
ciimatic       ing  these  observations.     The  climate  here 
is  intoxicating,  the  people  are  optimistic, 
the  material  wealth  is  enormous — the  act 
ual  valuation  of  all  real  and  personal  prop 
erty   in    the   United    States    is  325,185,- 
455,985  of  francs — and  yet  I  cannot  put 
away  from  me  the  impression  that  another, 
and  an  even  more  ferocious,  struggle,  bc- 
140 


Class  Distinctions 


tween  those  who  have  and  those  who  have 
not,  looms  not  far  off  upon  the  horizon. 

I  can  see  the  mortgage -burdened  West 
and  Southwest  maddened  by  demagogues 
demanding  some  prosperity-killing,  politi 
cal  or  economic,  or  financial,  change. 

I  can  see  frightened  Eastern  capitalists  Frightened 
sending  money  to  Canada,  to  England,  and         l 
to  Germany  for  safe-keeping. 

I  can  see  holders  of  American  securities 
in  Europe  literally  dumping  them  back 
upon  the  market  here. 

I  can  see  the  social  jealousies,  that  the 
Americans  either  will  not,  or  cannot,  see, 
exchanging  surly  looks  for  rifles,  and  frowns 
for  gunpowder ;  and  then  I  can  see  these 
seventy  millions  in  such  a  turbulent  death- 
struggle  as  would  awe  the  world,  even  the 
world  which  still  hears  the  re-echoing 
shrieks  and  groans  and  laughter  of  our  own 
Revolution.  Thank  God,  you  and  I  will 
not  be  there  to  see  !  Please  God,  it  may 
be  a  false  vision  and  I  a  mistaken  prophet  !  A  vision. 
But  unless  the  people  here  who  know,  and 
have,  awaken  to  some  sort  of  sense  of  re 
sponsibility,  and  the  better  class  of  news- 

141 


America  and  thz  Americans 

papers  cease  to  tamper  with  the  dynamite 
of  class  prejudice,  trouble  is  sure  to  come. 

It  is  true  that  thus  far  the  sturdy  good 
Underlying  sense  which  underlies  the  indifference  and 

good  sense.  ,    .  .     .  . 

recklessness  of  these  people  has  always  come 
to  the  front  in  the  hour  of  danger,  and 
triumphed  over  all  obstacles  and  all  at 
tacks.  But  it  is  well  to  notice  that  each 
time  the  attack  is  more  furious  than  before, 
the  anarchism  more  outspoken,  and  the 
spread  of  discontent  covers  a  wider  area. 
So  long  as  the  social  questions  can  be  en 
tangled  with  matters  concerning  the  cur 
rency  and  the  tariff,  the  rival  camps  are 
themselves  split  into  parties,  but  if  the 
battle  is  ever  fairly  engaged  between  the 
The -would-  would -haves  and  the  have  -  gots,  there 
the  have-  promises  to  be  a  reign  of  terror  for  awhile. 
After  each  election,  people  forget  how 
frightened  they  were  before  it.  It  were 
well  if  they  could  remember  their  fright 
for  some  time  after  as  well  as  before ! 


142 


XI 

Concord,  Plymouth,  and  Cam 
bridge 

jY  visits  to  Concord  and  Plym 
outh  were,  I  must  confess,  dis 
appointments.  At  Concord  the 
houses  where  certain  great  men 
have  lived,  the  streets  through  which  they 
were  wont  to  walk,  and  in  the  neighborhood 
certain  spots  consecrated  to  the  first  out 
breaks  of  the  War  of  the  Revolution,  are 
shown  to  you. 

To  the  foreigner,  whose  imagination  is  First  im- 

^111  ii'  i  i  prcssions  of 

not  fired  by  these  recollections,  the  place  Concord, 
is  but  a  barren  country  village.  The  names 
of  Emerson  and  Thoreau  were  more  or 
less  familiar,  but  some  of  the  other  names, 
that  of  a  man  named  Alcott,  for  example, 
who,  I  was  told,  was  a  great  philosopher, 
were  names  I  had  never  seen  and  never 
heard. 

M3 


America  and  the  Americans 


American         The  insularity  of  Americans  is  very  much 

insularity.  ,         ~  ,  .  ™, 

to  the  fore  on  such  occasions.  They  are 
lacking  in  that  culture  which  consists  in 
fine  discriminations.  Open  and  undis 
guised  surprise  was  expressed  at  Concord 
that  I  had  never  heard  of  Alcott.  But 
when  I  came  to  inquire  what  he  had  writ 
ten,  it  turned  out  that  he  had  written  noth 
ing  ;  and  yet  the  foreigner  was  supposed 
to  know  the  distinguishing  features  of  this 
literary  foundling  of  a  little  town  in 
Massachusetts.  It  reminds  one  of  a  child 
who  says  to  the  total  stranger  :  ' '  Why,  my 
name's  Jeanne  ;  don't  you  know  me?  " 

After  the  rather  pompous  young  cler 
gyman  who  accompanied  us  on  our  tour 
about  Concord  had  retailed  to  me  the 
literary  and  political  gossip  of  the  place, 
as  though  each  minute  fragment  were  a 
commonplace  of  European  discussion,  I 
could  not  refrain  from  a  little  subdued  im 
pertinence.  When  he  asked  me,  therefore, 
what  Americans  were  best  known  abroad — • 
they  always  say  "abroad"  here  in  refer 
ring  to  Europe,  as  though  we  were  anchored 
off  their  coast  somewhere — I  told  him  that 
144 


Concord,  Plymouth,  and  Cambridge 

the  two  names  I  had  heard  most  often  were  Akott 
those  of  Mark  Twain  and  John  L.  Sullivan.    L.  Sullivan 

There  is  a  grain  of  truth  in  this  state 
ment,  though,  no  doubt,  this  admission  on 
my  part  left  my  reputation  in  Concord  torn 
to  tatters.  But  even  though  Emerson  was 
foolish  enough  to  say  that  Alcott  had  the 
finest  mind  since  Plato,  I  never  heard  of 
him,  and  thousands  of  Frenchmen,  Ger 
mans,  and  Englishmen  of  undoubted  claims 
to  literary  eminence  have  never  heard  of 
him ;  and  though  Concord  bemoan  our  in 
tellectual  limitations,  I  am  bound  to  make 
the  confession. 

The  only  things  that  I  remember  dis 
tinctly  about  Concord  are  this  young  cleri 
cal  prig  and  a  really  fine  statue  by  a  sculptor 
named  French.  To  say  that  I  remember 
them  for  entirely  different  reasons,  I  owe  it 
to  the  sculptor  to  admit  at  once. 

To  Plymouth  I  went,  accompanied  by  a 
genial  and  cultivated  acquaintance,  and  it  A  guide  to 
is  due  to  him,  rather  than  to  Plymouth  per-   Plymouik- 
haps,  that  I  owe  my  enjoyment  of  the  jour 
ney.    He  was  a  scholar,  a  man  of  the  world, 
and  devoted  to  his  own  particular  subject. 

US 


America  and  the  Americans 

He  had  travelled,  and  had  met  men  all 
over  Europe,  and  so  made  no  attempt  to 
assume  that  my  education  had  been  neg 
lected  because  I  was  unfamiliar  with  the 
insular  distinctions  of  a  provincial  com 
munity. 

But  even  at  Plymouth  the  kindly  gen 
tleman,  who  went  about  with  us,  devoted 
a  good  share  of  the  day  to  an  explanation, 
for  my  benefit,  of  the  difference  between 
Pilgrims,  the  Pilgrims  and  the  Puritans.  He  seemed 
and  plan-  to  think  that  most  of  the  planetary  disturb 
ances  and  many  of  the  European  complica 
tions  of  the  day  might  be  allayed  if  the 
difference  between  the  Pilgrims  and  the 
Puritans  were  kept  in  mind. 

This  absorbing  interest  in  the  affairs  of 
the  moment,  and  the  affairs  of  one's  own 
community,  is  an  American  trait.  Per 
haps  it  is  due  to  their  isolation  from  the 
larger  concerns  of  the  world ;  but  what 
ever  the  cause,  it  is  looked  upon  by  most 
Americans  as  unpatriotic  to  see  anything 
good  outside  of  America. 

No  criticism — except  political  criticism 
—is  tolerated,  even  in  the  newspapers.  It 
146 


Concord,  Plymouth,  and  Cambridge 

is  a  fine  quality  in  a  man  to  stand  by  his 
friends,  whether  they  are  right  or  wrong, 
once  they  are  in  trouble  ;  it  is  a  fine  thing 
in  the  people  of  a  nation  to  stand  by  their 
flag,  once  that  flag  is  unfurled  in  battle ; 
but  surely  the  frank  criticism  of  one's 
friends  and  of  one's  country  in  their  pros 
perity  is  not  treason. 

But  these  people  are  personally  and,  as 
a  nation,  fearfully  sensitive.  Not  to  shout  American 

.  ,  *ii  111         sensitive' 

the  most  absurd  patriotic  bombast  all  the  ness. 
time  is,  for  a  politician,  political  suicide  ; 
and  not  to  do  much  the  same  thing  in  the 
case  of  the  private  individual,  is  to  earn 
the  reputation  of  being  finical.  This  ten 
dency  protects  each  community,  and  the 
nation  at  large,  in  a  narrow-mindedness 
only  equalled  in  Turkey  and  China. 

I  was  told  that  there  are  only  twenty- 
four  towns  in  all  Massachusetts  without  a 
free  public  library,  and  no  children  to  whom 
are  not  offered  the  very  best  opportunities 
for  free  schooling.  Here,  as  in  so  many 
other  departments  of  life  in  America,  the 
theory  is  excellent,  but  the  results  in  prac 
tice  are  by  no  means  what  this  and  other 


America  and  the  Americans 
Democratic    democratic  nostrums  promised.     There  are 

nostrums.         .    .,  .          ...  , 

jails,  and  criminals,  and  insane  asylums, 
drunkards,  and  tenement-houses,  and  polit 
ical  jobbery  in  Massachusetts,  just  as  there 
are  in  France,  in  England,  and  Italy,  and, 
no  doubt,  in  much  the  same  proportion  to 
the  inhabitants. 

As  for  the  country  towns,  I  have  never 
seen  anywhere,  out  of  Italy,  such  numbers 
of  apparently  unoccupied  young  men  and 
boys.  At  every  railway-station  you  see 
them,  at  the  street-corners  you  see  them, 
Transcend-  and,  unless  they  are  Transcendental  philos- 

entalloaf-  J . 

ers.  ophers  on  the  browse  for  epigrams,  as  my 

slim  young  Concord  clergyman  would  have 
me  believe,  they  probably  get  into  mis 
chief  just  as  do  other  idlers  in  countries 
where  there  are  fewer  public  libraries  and 
fewer  free  schools. 

Travelled  Americans  have  often  told  me 
how  they  have  been  amazed  in  France,  in 
England,  and  in  Germany,  to  find  how 
little  the  people  of  the  interior  towns  and 
villages  know  of  the  great  world  outside 
them.  But  here  this  indifference  takes  an 
other  and  worse  form. 
148 


Concord,  Plymouth,  ami  Cambridge 

At  Concord  and  Plymouth  and  other 
towns,  not  excepting  Boston  even,  there 
is  a  complete  self-satisfaction  with  the  very 
little  they  do  know,  and  a  calm  assumption  Seif-suffi- 
that  they  are  the  ideal  communities  of  the 
world,  toward  which  the  benighted  com 
munities  of  the  rest  of  the  world  are  striv 
ing,  which,  if  it  were  not  so  sad,  would 
be  highly  ridiculous. 

Here  is  a  great  State  with  only  twenty- 
four  villages  which  lack  free  libraries,  and 
in  it  the  largest  university  in  the  nation, 
and  for  the  last  twenty-five  years  not  a 
book  has  been  written  there  which  has  inteiie**ai 
been  universally  welcomed,  as  were  the 
writings  of  Longfellow,  Lowell,  Emerson, 
and  Whittier.  Indeed,  since  the  death  of 
Webster,  Sumner,  and  Andrew,  there  has 
not  been  produced  by  this  community  a 
great  man,  unless,  perhaps,  it  be  the  pres 
ent  bishop  of  the  State.* 

It  is  often  said  in  America  that  their 
great  advantage  over  the  rest  of  the  world 
lies  in  the  fact  that  no  traditions  and  no 

*  This  was  written  before  the  death  of  the  late 
Bishop  Brooks. — ED. 

149 


America  and  the  Americans 

prejudices  stop  the  way  to  progress.  On 
the  other  hand,  what  is  always  forgotten 
is  the  fact  of  their  hide-bound  attachment 
to  their  own  theories,  no  matter  what  the 
outcome  may  be  in  practice. 

Theory  and  The  theory  of  universal  education  pre 
scribed  by  law  is  a  good  theory,  but  in 
practice  it  has  neither  produced  an  excep 
tional  number  of  scholars,  nor  has  it  de 
creased  the  number  of  dependents  and  de 
linquents,  or  cleansed  politics.  The  theory 
of  checks  for  the  transfer  of  luggage  is  a 
good  theory  and  sounds  very  convenient ; 
in  practice  it  delays  the  arrival  of  luggage, 
causes  the  traveller  to  miss  his  connections, 
and  in  the  end  is  ruinously  expensive.  The 
theory  of  many  mechanical  contrivances 
for  personal  intercourse,  such  as  the  type 
writer,  the  microphone,  short-hand,  and  the 
telephone  is  a  good  theory  ;  but  in  practice 
it  fails  notably  to  compete  with  the  per 
sonal  service  of  Europe. 

rhe  theory  The  theory  of  the  political  equality  of 
1  every  man  is  a  good  theory,  and  it  has,  be 
it  said  in  its  favor,  done  away  with  a  cer 
tain  servility  of  the  lower  to  the  upper 

'5° 


Concord,  Plymouth,  and  Cambridge 

classes  ;  but  in  practice  it  has  ostracized 
good  manners  and  obedience  in  all  classes, 
and  put  the  management  of  New  York, 
Chicago,  Philadelphia,  and  other  cities  in 
the  hands  of  unprincipled  and  indifferent 
money-grabbers.  The  theory  of  one  man 
— one  vote — sounds  well,  but,  strange  to 
say,  in  every  presidential  election  no  such 
thing  exists  even.  In  each  State  every 
voter  throws  his  ballot  not  for  his  one  can 
didate,  but  for  the  whole  number  of  elec 
tors  allotted  to  his  State.  Hence  each  The  value 
voter  in  New  York  State  votes  for  thirty- 
six  votes  for  President,  while  in  the  smaller 
States,  of  course,  the  voter's  vote  is  of  less 
value. 

It  is  true  that  the  people  are  not  blind 
ed  by  prejudice,  but  they  are  drunk  with 
theories  which  their  lack  of  a  certain  inter 
national  experience  renders  them  incapable 
of  criticising.  I  am  happy  to  say  that  the 
above  was  written  before  my  visit  to  Har 
vard  College.  For  once  there,  I  was  told 
that  the  rest  of  the  country  looks  upon 
Harvard  College  as  a  hot-bed  of  political 
toryism.  But  that  again  seems  to  me  to  be 


America  and  the  Americans 

due  to  another  theory,  with  its  attendant 
bad  practice. 

The  theory  of  this  land  is  free  speech 
and  free  thought,  but  the  practice  is  the 
muzzling  of  both.  There  are  men  here, 
and  elsewhere,  who,  because  they  are  not 
political  hirelings,  and  because  they  write 
and  speak  what  they  believe,  without  ref 
erence  to  whether  it  will  or  will  not  ac 
crue  to  their  personal  popularity,  by  this 
very  putting  into  practice  of  the  national 
theory,  are  harshly  criticised,  ridiculed, 
and  stormed  at,  by  almost  every  news 
paper  in  the  country. 

When  a  man's  ancestors,  some  of  them, 
have  died  for  free  thought  and  free  speech, 
he  has  a  warm  place  in  his  heart  for  any  in 
stitution  which  insists  upon  this  privilege, 
whether  he  agrees  altogether  with  what  is 
thought,  and  said  sometimes,  or  not. 

I  saw  the  usual  sights  here.  In  the  beau- 
Memories  tiful  hall  built  to  commemorate  the  men 
who  fell  in  battle  in  1861-65,  I  saw  s^x  or 
seven  hundred  of  the  students  dining  to 
gether,  waited  upon  by  the  negroes,  whom 
their  fellows  fought  to  free  from  slavery. 

152 


Concord,  Plymouth,  and  Cambridge 


I  attended  a  lecture  on  the  Fine  Arts, 
and  another  on  English,  and  found  the  lat 
ter  particularly  interesting  from  the  novel 
way  in  which  the  subject  was  handled. 

I  got  up  early  one  morning  and  went  to 
the  chapel  for  morning  prayers.  Until  re 
cently  the  attendance  on  morning  prayers  Prayers 

.       .  and  athlet* 

has  been  obligatory,  now  it  is  voluntary.  »«. 
The  attendance  was  very  small,  and  most 
of  those  present  were,  I  was  informed,  men 
in  training  for  the  various  athletic  contests, 
who  are  obliged  by  their  regimen  to  get 
up  early.  With  the  usual  American  inge 
nuity,  "prayers"  are  made  use  of  to  en 
force  this  law  of  athletics,  for  thus  it  can  be 
seen  easily  by  the  trainers  and  captains  of 
"  teams  "  and  "  crews,"  that  their  men  are 
out  of  bed  when  they  should  be. 

There  is  one  official  chaplain  to  the  uni 
versity,  but  clergymen  of  different  creeds 
take  charge  of  the  religious  work  in  turn, 
and  when  one  or  another  of  these  is  in 
charge,  I  was  told  that  more  of  the  students 
attend  the  services. 

Some  of  the  newer  buildings  are  costly 
and  handsome,  but  the  older  buildings,  in 


America  and  the  Americans 


Meagre  en 
tertaining. 


Academic 
compari- 


what  is  called  "the  college  yard,"  cannot 
bear  comparison  with  the  buildings  of  the 
different  colleges  of  the  English  universities. 

The  entertaining  here  is  on  a  modest 
scale,  and  only  here  and  there  a  professor 
who  has,  or  whose  wife  has,  money,  is  en 
abled  to  entertain  to  any  continued  extent. 
The  salaries  paid  are  larger  than  in  French 
or  German  universities,  but  nothing  like  as 
large  as  those  received  by  the  heads  of  col 
leges  in  England. 

The  president  is  a  man  of  admirable 
presence  and  distinguished  speech,  who  en 
joys  that  paradoxical,  but  most  genuine, 
popularity — the  popularity  of  the  unpopular 
man.  People  believe  in  him  without  lik 
ing  him  ;  while,  unless  my  impressions  are 
wrong,  the  majority  of  America's  popu 
lar  idols  are  men  whom  the  people  applaud 
without  trusting  them. 

I  met  some  of  the  students,  and  if  I  may 
permit  myself  a  broad,  and,  I  must  admit 
also,  a  hasty,  generalization,  I  should  say 
that  there  are  fewer  men  here  with  the 
wide  culture  of  the  universities  of  Europe, 
but  perhaps  more  who  have  devoted  them- 

154 


Concord,  Plymouth,  and  Cambridge 

selves  to  specialties,  particularly  the  spe 
cialties  of  science. 

One  might  fancy  that  there  would  be  a 
good  deal  of  intercourse  between  the  uni 
versity  men,  both  professors  and  under-  Cambridge 

and  Boston, 

graduates,  and  the  people  of  Boston,  but 
I  am  told  there  is  comparatively  little. 
Many  Boston  men  are  graduates  of  the  col 
lege,  and  many  have  sons  there,  but  either 
on  account  of  the  provincialism  of  Boston 
society  as  a  whole,  or  through  lack  of  so 
cial  enterprise  on  both  sides,  the  good  that 
might  be  expected  to  result  from  a  large 
university  and  a  large  city,  side  by  side,  is 
not  present. 

Harvard,  recruiting  its  students  from  all 
over  America,  is  not  up  to  Boston  socially ; 
and  Boston,  recruiting  its  fashionable  peo 
ple,  year  by  year,  from  the  ranks  of  the 
newly  rich,  is  not  up  to  Harvard  intellect 
ually.  Whatever  the  reason,  the  fact  re 
mains  the  same,  and  is  another  indication 
of  the  narrowness  of  much  of  the  social  and 
intellectual  life  here. 


155 


XII 

American  English 

5O  stranger  may  visit  Boston 
without  discovering  that  there 
is  a  timid  consciousness  on  the 
part  of  Bostonians  that  it  is  a 
profitable  thing  to  hear  English  as  spoken 
Boston  in  Boston.  The  broad  "  a  "  is  as  much  a 
English.  prociuct  Of  Boston,  so  they  think  there,  as 
codfish-balls  or  baked  beans.  A  spinster 
of  uncertain  years  is  no  more  titteringly 
offended  when  you  underestimate  her  years 
than  is  Boston  when  you  allude  to  the  pro 
nunciation  of  the  English  language  there. 
My  own  acquaintance  with  English  is  too 
slight  to  permit  of  my  posing  as  a  fair  critic 
on  this  question.  Still,  even  I  could  not 
fail  to  note  differences  in  the  different  parts 
of  the  States  that  I  had  the  honor  to  visit. 
The  soft,  guttural  speech  of  the  South 
erner,  the  sharp,  metallic  nasality  of  the 
West,  the  dodging  of  the  letter  <'  r  "  in 

156 


American  English 


11  girl  "  and  "  bird  "  and  "  shirt,"  and  the 
like,  in  New  York,  all  these  were  soon  fa 
miliar  to  me.  The  Bostonian,  however, 
assumes  that  he  speaks  like  an  Englishman. 
Fortunately,  for  him,  he  does  not ;  unfortu 
nately  for  him,  in  many  cases  he  tries  to 
do  so. 

Sometimes  the  conquered  are  the  con 
querors.  In  Boston  the  Bunker  Hill  Monu 
ment  commemorates  a  victory,  but  the 
neo-Briticisra  of  their  speech  proves  that 
here  again  the  conquerors  made  endur 
ing  conquests. 

"  Highfalutin"  and  "gerrymander,"  American* 
and  "buncombe"  and  "variety  show" 
(for  music-hall  entertainment),  "  notion 
counter,"  "  gone  where  the  woodbine  twin- 
eth  "  (meaning  up  the  spout),  "busted" 
(meaning  bankrupt),  "spread-eagleism," 
"  bull-doze,"  "  catch  on,"  "  put-up  job," 
"  too  previous,"  political  "pull,"  "  bump 
tious,"  "give  us  a  rest,"  and  many  other 
words  and  phrases,  are,  if  not  academic, 
still  capital  additions  to  the  vocabulary  of 
everyday  conversation. 

The  stranger  greets  these  brand-new  lin- 

157 


America  and  tbe  Americans 

gual  visitors  with  effusive  delight.  The 
stranger,  too,  rather  admires  the  grand- 
fatherless  millionnaires,  and  views  with 
pleasure  their  doughty  sons  and  daughters 
clambering  up  the  social  ladder.  The 
American,  strange  to  say,  is  apparently  the 
last  to  appreciate  what  are  the  genuine 
novelties  and  the  real  charms  of  his  own 
civilization.  He  is  all  too  often  ashamed 
of  the  wrong  things,  like  the  college-edu 
cated  son  of  a  man  who,  without  any  breed 
ing,  has  made  his  "  pile." 

If  there  be  a  quality  for  which  "  bun 
combe  "  or  "  highfalutin  "  or  "spread- 
eagleism  "  supplies  the  exact  interpretation 
— and  there  is — then  these  words  ought  to 
be  welcome.  If  there  is  a  stage  of  civili 
zation  in  a  new  country  where  sheer  per 
sonal  prowess  hews  its  way  to  success  with 
out  any  of  the  advantages  of  university 
training,  then  the  exponent  of  that  ought 
to  be  welcomed,  and  not  apologized  for. 
Assumed  There  is  a  twittering  self-consciousness 
about  the  Americans  however — except  on 
the  Fourth  of  July — which  makes  them  un 
certain  as  to  what  is  good  form  and  what 

158 


American  English 


is  bad  form,  in  both  their  speech  and  their 
manners.  One  would  find  himself  quite  at 
fault,  should  he  accept  the  satisfied  and  self- 
glorifying  statements  of  the  newspapers  and 
the  political  orators  about  "  the  greatest 
country  on  earth,"  "  God's  own  country," 
"  we  can  lick  creation,"  "  a  hundred  years 
of  prosperity  unequalled  in  the  aeons  of  all 
the  planets,"  as  being  the  serious  estimate 
of  themselves,  held  by  most  Americans. 
All  that  is  merely  the  self-deceptive  boast 
ing  of  a  people  who  are  in  reality  diffident 
about  many  of  their  institutions,  about  their 
manners,  and  even  about  their  speech. 

"  Consuetudo  certissima  loquendi  magis- 
tra ' '  writes  Quintilian,  and  what  the  Ameri-  en«>«forf. 
cans  lack,  above  all  things,  are  precedents 
and  experience.  This  dearth  of  fixed  stand 
ards  in  manners  and  speech,  and  of  any  class 
acknowledged  to  be  worthy  leaders  in  such 
matters,  leaves  each  community  and  every 
man  to  shift  for  himself.  This  ought  to 
produce  a  picturesque  variety  of  manners 
and  of  speech  which  would  be  both  inter 
esting  to,  and  respected  by,  the  foreign  visi 
tor.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the 

159 


America  and  the  Americans 

Americans  "  hanker  "  (first-rate  word  this) 
after  just  those  precedents,  just  those  cere 
monious  formalities,  for  which  they  have  no 
equivalents. 

True,  this  is  more  apparent  in  the  East 
than  in  the  West  and  South,  but  in  my 
two  visits,  with  an  interval  between  of  some 
years,  I  can  see  that  their  self-sufficiency  is 
lessening,  and  that  their  striving  to  adopt 
the  manners,  customs,  clothes,  ceremonies, 
and  formalities  of  what  the  newspapers  and 
the  "buncombe"  orators  are  pleased  to 
call  "  the  effete  monarchies  of  Europe," 
is  spreading  ever  farther  into  the  interior. 

It  is  only  in  the  larger  cities  that  the 
newspapers  can  be  depended  upon  for  good 
English,  nor  can  much  confidence  be 
placed  in  them  even,  as  authorities.  The 
mass  of  people  who  read  their  local  newspa 
pers  are  not  improved  in  their  writing  or 
speaking  of  English,  thereby. 

foumaiism  I  believe  I  am  right  in  stating  that  it  is 
only  since  the  late  war  that  newspapers 
here  have  been  profitable  enough  to  em 
ploy  first-rate  men.  In  France,  and  in 
England,  the  very  best  men  from  Jules 
1 60 


American  English 


Simon  to  Zola,  and  from  Lord  Salisbury 
down,  have  been  proud  to  enroll  themselves 
as  journalists.  It  is  only  within  the  last 
thirty  years  here,  that  the  newspapers  have 
improved  in  tone  sufficiently  to  make  it 
at  all  usual  for  the  better  class  of  educated 
men  to  be  connected  with  them  in  any 
capacity. 

It  was  my  pleasure,  and  my  profit,  some    TWO  jour* 

-» r        ^    J  -iTT-ii'  nalists. 

years  ago  to  meet  Mr.  George  William 
Curtis,  and  since  that  time  I  have  met  Mr. 
Charles  Dana.  The  former  was  a  very  un 
usual  type  of  gentleman,  and  a  man  of  deli 
cate  humor,  refined  speech,  and  unbending 
integrity  ;  while  the  latter  is  a  scholar  in 
many  different  fields,  and  an  amateur  in 
everything.  Such  men  as  these,  and  there 
are  doubtless  many  others,  mark,  in  the 
field  of  journalism,  the  sharp  contrast, 
which  seems  to  me,  the  more  I  travel  here, 
to  be  the  salient  feature  of  the  civilization. 
You  no  sooner  make  up  your  mind  at 
the  tumble-down  wharf  to  which  your 
steamer  is  tied,  that  you  have  landed  at  a 
frontier  town,  than  you  marvel  at  the  fin 
ished  luxury  of  your  rooms  at  the  hotel. 
161 


America  and  the  Americans 


You  are  about  to  make  a  generalization 
from  the  beefsteak  and  ice-cream  dinner 
sharp  of  your  neighbor  in  the  hotel  restaurant, 
cagain'ts  when  you  dine  off  gold,  and  drink  from 
crystal,  at  the  house  of  your  friend's 
friend ;  you  prepare  to  damn  the  news 
papers  after  reading  the  lust,  lechery,  and 
larceny  headed  columns  of  one  or  another 
journal,  when  you  are  surprised  into  hesi 
tation  by  a  witty  half  column  in  the  Sun 
or  a  dignified  discussion  in  the  Tribune, 
though  even  the  best  edited  of  them  can 
not  refrain  from  calling  names,  and  apply 
ing  vulgar  epithets,  in  -true  street-arab 
fashion. 

No  country  in  the  world  that  I  have 
visited  tempts  you  so  often  to  say  "  all 
men  are  liars,"  or  something  worse,  and 
brings  you  up  so  often  with  a  round  turn, 
to  tempt  you  into  extravagant  praise. 

Then,  too,  in  this  matter  of  the  use  of 
English,  either  spoken  or  printed,  a  French 
man  hesitates  to  make  categorical  state 
ments.  It  was,  alas  !  one  of  my  own  coun 
trymen  who,  translating  a  French  culinary 
recipe  into  English,  wrote  :  "  The  rabbit 
162 


American  English 


wants  to  be  skinned  alive,  the  hare  prefers 
to  wait." 

The  peculiar  quality  of  American  hu 
mor  is  apt  to  land  a  foreigner  in  many  pit 
falls.  So  much  of  the  newspaper  writing 
and  of  the  everyday  speech  of  the  people 
is  replete  with  gross  exaggerations,  that 
one  is  at  a  loss  very  often  to  know  what  is 
meant  seriously. 

I  distinctly  remember  the  puzzled  look  American. 
on  the  face  of  a  distinguished  French  dip 
lomat  at  a  dinner  in  Washington,  when 
one  of  the  guests,  without  a  smile,  told  how 
two  burglars  had  broken  into  the  house  of 
Jay  Gould,  but  before  the  police  could  be 
summoned  they  were  robbed  of  their  tools. 

The  so-called  funny  papers  appear  each 
week  with  page  after  page  teeming  with 
jokes  and  stories  of  this  description.  There 
is  a  certain  sadness  in  this  very  humor.  I 
have  often  thought  that  in  the  case  of  in 
dividuals,  as  well  as  in  the  case  of  the  pro 
fessional  journalistic  purveyors  of  fun,  this 
universal  love  of  gross  exaggeration  and  of 
shocking  contrasts  is  due  to  a  certain  fa 
talism  of  the  people. 

163 


America  and  the  Americans 
Humor  and       The  sharp  changes  of  fortune   and   of 

local  condi-  .    ,  .   .  ,  ,  ,  ... 

tions.  social  position,  the  sudden  springing  into 

political  prominence  of  this  man  or  that, 
the  father  a  pedler,  the  son  a  millionnaire  ; 
the  grandfather  penniless,  the  grandson  an 
entertainer  of  princes  ;  the  mother  an  Irish 
washerwoman,  the  daughter  the  wife  of  a 
prince  ;  these  changes,  so  out  of  the  steady 
line  of  development,  give  a  fatalistic  tinge 
to  life  here.  Consequently,  there  is  much 
trusting  to  luck,  much  discontent  with  the 
steady  grind,  which  is  all  life  has  for  most 
of  us. 

The  newspapers  parade  and  picture  to 
the  masses  these  almost  miraculous  changes 
of  the  wheel  of  fortune,  and  make  the 
people  in  many  cases  to  look  upon  the 
commonplace  methods  of  earning,  saving, 
and  steady,  uneventful  work,  as  distasteful 
and  unfair.  Fate  has  this  prize  for  that 
one,  or  this  blank  for  me.  They  have  not 
lived  long  enough  here  to  know,  or  to  care 
much  about,  the  theory  of  averages,  or  to 
believe  very  strongly  in  the  possible  hap 
piness  of  the  golden  mean. 

The  language  itself,  the  speech  of  the 
164 


American  English 


man  in  the  street,  and  the  writing  in  the 
more  vulgar  news-sheets,  are  moulded 
somewhat  by  this  sadness  and  discontent 
on  the  one  hand,  and  by  this  turbulent  and 
accidental  happiness  produced  by  marvel 
lous  changes  on  the  other. 

A  surprise,  an  exaggeration,  a  success,    Occidental 
the  winning  ticket  in  the  lottery,  are  ever  Fataltsm> 
to  the  fore  in  the  minds  of  many  as  a  pos 
sibility.     Who  may  not  "  strike  ile,"  who 
may  not  find  coal  or  clay  on  his  property, 
who  may  not  "  strike  it  rich,"  in  a  gold 
or  silver  mine  ? 

Nature  herself,  from  this  great  wealthy 
lap  of  hers,  may  tumble  out  a  precious  gift 
into  the  hands  of  the  least  likely  passer- 
by. 

Language  is,  after  all,  but  the  passing 
cloud-picture  of  the  mind.  The  reticence 
and  the  carefully  pruned  phrases  of  the 
Briton,  the  gorgeous  compliments  of  the 
Eastern  races,  the  hazy,  all-defining,  par 
enthetic  speech  of  the  Germans,  the  clean- 
cut  epigrammatic  speech  of  my  own  land, 
and  this  grotesque  humor  of  exaggeration 
or  underestimation  so  common  here,  are 

165 


America  and  the  Americans 

all  typical  of  the  men  and  the  minds  be 
hind  them. 

Be  it  said  that  to  my  ears,  at  least,  the 
English  of  their  best  people  is  equal,  if  not 
better,  than  that  of  the  same  class  in  Great 
Britain. 

Of  the  American  voice,  however,  one 
cannot  speak  so  flatteringly.  There  is  a 
hard,  rasping,  metallic  quality  about  it. 
This,  I  believe,  is  due  in  part  to  the  cli 
mate,  for  it  is  more  noticeable  in  the  mid 
dle  West  and  in  northern  New  England 
than  in  the  South  and  along  the  milder 
parts  of  the  coast,  though  the  negroes, 
who  have  been  here  now  for  a  century, 
have  still  very  soft,  and  sometimes  even 
sweet,  voices. 
An  But  given  a  self-confident,  perhaps  short- 

acidulated      ,      .        ,  .       .      ,  .  .  .. 

vestal.  haired  and  independent,  spinster  from 
Maine,  and  nowhere  else  in  the  world  of 
spoken  language  is  vocalization  so  distress 
ing  to  the  ear.  The  general  tendency,  too, 
seems  to  be  to  speak  much  too  loud.  Men 
and  women  in  hotels  and  tram-cars  and 
railway-trains  seem,  by  the  loud  pitch  of 
their  voices,  to  invite  you  to  share  what 

166 


American  English 


they  are  saying.  The  same  publicity  per 
vades  their  speech  which  pervades  their 
lives. 

It  is  a  Frenchman  who  says  that  his  only    The  voice 
objection  to  solitude  is  that  there  is  no  one  ££,». 
near  to  whom  he  may  speak  of  its  charm. 
The  American  might  well  say  that  his  only 
objection  to  solitude  is  that  there  is  no 
crowd  to  elbow  him,  or  to  listen  to  him. 
This  loud,   piercing,   unmodulated  voice, 
reflects  the  love  of  a  crowd,  of  bustle,  and 
much  business. 

I  am  writing  to  you,  of  course,  of  the  men 
and  women  i  n  the  street,  so  to  speak.  Well- 
bred  people  here  do  not  yell  in  their  draw 
ing-rooms,  nor  do  they  screech  at  their 
dinner-tables,  but  the  general  impression 
one  receives  of  speech  and  voice  is  as  I 
have  described  it.  Both  are  too  loud. 
The  haw-hawing  hesitancy  of  the  English 
man  even,  "  comes  as  a  poultice  to  heal  the 
blows  of  sound,"  after  much  of  this  hard, 
piercing,  and  often  rasping,  speech.  A 
Democracy  must  necessarily  produce  a  dis 
tinct  quality  of  voice.  Where  all  are  free 
to  speak,  where  all  assert  the  right  to  be 

167 


America  and  the  Americans 

heard,  the  voices  that  are  to  survive  must 
be  loud  and  distinct. 

A  man  may  look  like  a  monkey,  and  yet 
turn  out  to  be  a  philosopher ;  a  man  may 
dress  like  a  vagabond,  and  yet  have  the  in 
tuitions  of  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman  ;  the 
face,  the  expression  of  the  eyes,  the  dress, 
the  manners  even,  may  all  be  deceptive, 
but  the  voice  and  speech  of  men  and  wom- 

aristocracy.     ^  dassify    them    infallibly.        Gentle  VOicCS 

and  simple  speech  are  the  heritage  of  the 
gentle  and  the  simple  alone.  Princes  who 
are  peasants  lack  them,  peasants  who  are 
princes  have  them,  and  here  as  elsewhere 
one  finds  princes  who  are  peasants  at  heart, 
and  peasants  who  are  nature's  princes. 


168 


XIII 

Travel  a  rAm£ricaine 

JN  leaving  Boston  I  made  my  first 
acquaintance  with  the  American 
sleeping-car.  During  that  night- 
journey  I  was  impressed  as  never 
before  with  the  demoralizing  effects  of  the 
theory  of  democracy  when  put  in  practice. 
The  American  cars  are  long  and  narrow, 
with  a  passage-way  running  down  the  cen 
tre,  from  door  to  door,  and  seats  on  each 
side.  Each  car  of  the  common  pattern  will 
seat  eighty  or  more  people,  and  the  Pull 
man,  or  more  expensive  cars,  a  few  less. 
For  an  hour  or  more  I  sat  in  one  of  the  com 
mon  cars,  in  which  you  are  entitled  to  a 
seat  for  the  payment  of  the  usual  fare — in 
the  others  you  pay  something  additional. 
There  are  no  compartments,  there  is,  of  Personal 
course,  no  privacy.  The  conductor  comes  fri 
and  goes,  slamming  the  doors  at  each  end 
169 


America  and  the  Americans 

of  the  car  as  he  enters  and  passes  out. 
Another  under-official  sticks  his  head  in, 
now  and  again,  and  shouts  the  names  of 
stations,  and  also  slams  the  door.  An  imp 
A  of  infernal  origin  wends  his  way  up  and 

peripatetic        .  1-1  re      • 

fiend.  down  the  aisle,  offering  newspapers,  maga 
zines,  fruit,  chewing-gum,  smelling-salts, 
cigars,  candy  —  which  being  interpreted 
means  bon-bons — for  sale,  and  shouting  the 
while  at  the  top  of  his  lungs.  He  pitches 
parcels  of  chewing-gum,  boxes  of  bon-bons, 
magazines,  and  paper-covered  books  into 
your  lap,  leaves  them  a  moment,  and  then 
returns  to  collect  them  again. 

Apparently  there  is  no  redress  for  the 
impertinences  of  this  youth.  To  elderly 
gentlemen  chewing-gum  is  given  to  hold, 
matrons  receive  copies  of  sporting-journals, 
copies  of  Zola  or  Paul  de  Kock  are  given 
to  maidens,  to  nurses  with  children  are,  at 
the  discretion  of  this  young  devil,  given 
apples  or  nuts  or  candy,  for  which  the 
children  cry  when  he  returns  to  collect 
them. 

This  position,  which  it  would  seem  re 
quires  the  sagacity  and  discrimination  of  a 

170 


Travel  a  I'Americaine 


Ulysses,  is  filled  by  a  mere  apple-giving 
young  Paris,  who,  by  his  careless  distribu 
tion  of  highly  seasoned  literature  and  de 
structive  edibles  and  chewibles,  may  de 
bauch  the  minds,  and  upset  the  digestions, 
of  scores  of  innocent  travellers. 

Here  again  I  pause  to  express  my  aston 
ishment  to  think  that  I  have  the  audacity 
to  attempt  to  describe  these  bewildering 
Americans  even  to  my  own  sister.  No 
other  people  would  submit  to  have  this 
travel-disturber  let  loose  upon  them.  No 
down-trodden  Armenian  but  what  would 
slay  a  Turk,  were  a  Turk  allowed  to  tort 
ure  him  in  this  fashion ;  no  Chinaman 
who  would  not  rise  and  strangle  a  Japanese 
conqueror  who  should  attempt  to  tease  him, 
by  the  hour,  by  the  mile,  by  the  whole 
journey,  in  this  manner. 

These  good  Americans  pay  the  railroad 
company  a  round  sum  for  transportation, 
and  then  permit  themselves  to  be  put  in 
a  cage,  with  a  monkey  in  uniform,  who 
shoves  baskets  of  saliva-polished  apples  un 
der  their  noses,  who  tumbles  cheap  litera 
ture  into  their  laps,  who  plays  Tantalus  to 
171 


America  and  the  Americans 

their  children  with  indigestible  sweets,  and 
who  yells  his  nasalized  menu  in  their  ears 
from  start  to  finish  of  their  journey.  I  re 
peat,  who  can  understand,  who  can  make 
comprehensible,  such  a  people,  to  one  who 
has  not  seen  them  at  home  ? 

These  cars  are  the  typical  illustration  of 
democracy  in  practice.  Here  at  last  the 
theory  is  in  full  working  order  for  inspec- 

Practicai      tion.    In  my  car  there  are  a  hundred  people. 

tTo'n  of  rt      They  have  all  paid  the  same  amount,  they 

democracy-  11  ,. 

travel  at  the  same  rate  of  speed,  they  are 
treated  exactly  alike.  Each  seat  is  as  good 
as,  and  no  better  than,  every  other.  Sol 
omon  and  LeBaudy,  Socrates  and  Smindy- 
rides,  St.  Francis  and  Hippocleides,  wise 
man  and  fool,  philosopher  and  debauchee, 
saint  and  sensualist,  here  they  are  at  last 
all  together,  every  man  on  an  equality  with 
his  neighbor,  every  man  treated  just  like 
every  other  man,  and  now,  how  do  we 
like  it  ? 

I  am  a  republican,  the  reddest  of  red  re 
publicans  they  call  me  at  home,  but  I  do  not 
like  it.     I  do  not  like  it  because  everyone 
is  necessarily  brought,  in  point  of  discom- 
172 


Travel  a  I'Americaine 


fort  at  least,  to  the  level  of  the  lowest.  A 
German — I  know  him  by  the  "  Also  auf 
wicdersehen  /  "  spoken  to  his  friend  as  the 
train  rolled  out  of  the  station — takes  off  his 
boots,  puts  up  his  stockinged  feet  on  the 
rail  of  the  seat,  fits  his  head  into  a  corner 
of  the  window  near  him,  and  goes  to  sleep, 
to  snore. 

Half  a  dozen  seats  in  front  of  me  is  a 
woman  with  a  baby.     The  baby,  fresh  from 
heaven,  is   doubtless   an   aristocrat.     The 
conductor,  the  other  official,  and  the  train-  A  dis- 
monkey  slam  doors,  and  yell  the  baby  into  Aristocrat. 
a  frenzy.     It  wails  and  cries  and  screams. 
I  pity  the  mother,  to  be  sure,  but  as  I  have 
none  of  the  compensating  comforts  of  that 
baby  when  it  crows  and  goos  and  smiles, 
I  see  no  reason  why,  with  a  hundred  oth 
ers,  this  baby  should  play  upon  my  nerves 
as  though  I  were  a  zither,  and  the  baby  an 
automatic  thumb-ring,  worked  by  electric 
ity.     I  have  talked  about  equality  in  my 
day,  and  sometimes,  too,  of  fraternity,  but 
now  that  I  am  a  prisoner  in  this  elongated   Over-heated 
cage  of  equality,  heated  to  the  point  of  suf-   c 
focation — no  wonder  catarrh,  pneumonia, 

173 


America  and  the  Americans 


and  consumption  play  havoc  here — rushing 
through  space  propelled  by  that  non -recog 
nizer  of  persons,  steam,  I  am  bound  to  say 
that  I  like  it  not. 
Equality  at       There  may  be  a  saint   in   this  car,  but 

its  worst.  . 

what  can  his  odor  of  sanctity  do  to  miti 
gate  the  evils  of  this  unwholesome  and 
overheated  atmosphere?  There  may  be 
a  sage  in  this  car,  but  what  can  his  quiet 
thoughts  do  to  compensate  for  those  infan 
tile  shrieks  ?  There  may  be  a  philosopher 
sitting  within  a  few  yards  of  me,  but  what 
can  he  do  to  guard  the  innocent  against 
the  insidious  advances  of  that  purveyor  of 
literary  and  candied  nuisances  ? 

Does  not  equality  in  this  sense  mean 
merely  the  dead  level  of  the  lowest  ?  Ah, 
but  it  is  replied,  no  man  who  thinks,  sup 
poses  for  a  moment  that  equality  means 
more  than  political  equality,  equality  be 
fore  the  law.  But,  pray,  what  does  this 
political  equality  portend  ?  Have  not  the 
masses  in  their  hands  the  power  to  turn 
this  nation  into  just  such  a  company  as  I 
am  describing?  Is  this  indeed  not  the 
more  likely  outcome  of  democracy  carried  to 

174 


Travel  $  I'Americaine 


its  ultimate  point  ?  ' '  Le  mediocrite  inquire 
etjalouse  gemit  de  tous  les  succes,  parce  que 
le  champ  de  genie  se  retreat  sans  cesse  a 
ses  faibles  yeux. ' ' 

What  may  a  tax  on  incomes,  on  corpo 
rations,  on  railroads,  on  great  commercial 
companies  not  do  toward  levelling  all  down 
to  the  feeblest  ?  And  why  may  not  these  Possible 
jealous  and  discontented  voters  bring  about 
just  such  a  state  of  things,  where  commer 
cial  shrewdness,  where  inventive  talent, 
where  thrifty  investing  of  one's  surplus, 
may  be  made  fruitless  ?  I  see  no  reason. 
The  Constitution  itself  is  subject  to  amend 
ments  under  certain  conditions,  and  noth 
ing  else  stands  in  the  way. 

That  car  full  of  overheated  sovereigns, 
each  with  the  sceptre  of  a  vote  in  his 
hands,  made  me  shiver.  I  admit  this  the 
more  frankly,  because  if  my  critics  pooh- 
pooh  at  me,  they  must  needs  do  the  same 
at  the  scores  of  financiers  who  re-invested 
large  sums  in  England  during  the  late  war, 
and  at  many  others,  who  have  once  or  twice 
of  late  years,  during  a  financial  or  political 
panic,  sent  large  deposits  of  money  to  Ca- 

175 


America  and  the  Americans 

nadian  banks  or  hidden  away  their  gold.  I 
am  not  alone  in  thus  imagining  possible  dis 
asters,  I  am  only  alone  in  having  no  reason 
for  not  confessing  what  I  think. 

I  find  as  a  rule  that  most  Americans 
are  little  disturbed  by  such  a  line  of 
discussion.  The  immense  wealth  of  the 
country,  the  astounding  progress  of  the 
last  hundred  years,  and  the  terrible  strain 
of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  so  successful 
ly  borne,  these  give  them  confidence  and 
make  them  hopeful.  Then,  too,  they  are 
not,  as  a  people,  seriously  interested  in  the 
graver  problems  of  life. 

This  same  car  full  of  people  is  illustra 
tive  of  another  feature  of  this  civilization, 
namely,  the  dislike  of  solitude,  the  love  of 
publicity.     I  had  the  audacity  on  one  oc- 
An  editor     casion  to  ask  a  certain  editor  how  it  was 
°ailii™H'     that  people  permitted  his  journal  to  print 
their  names  so  continually.      He  looked  at 
me  as  a  cat  might  look  if  asked  why  the 
mice  did  not  come  out  and  share  the  rug 
before   the  fire  with  her.      "I   have  hun 
dreds    of  notes,  some    anonymous,    some 
signed,  sent  me  describing  how  this   one 
176 


Travel  d  VAmericaine 


or  that  participted  in  this  or  that  festivity 
or  was  present  at  this  or  that  function  ! 
I  will  not  say  that  everybody  is  pleased 
to  see  his  name  in  print,  but  most  peo 
ple  are,  and  some  people  feel  injured  if 
their  names  are  omitted  when  they  think 
that  they  should  have  been  inserted. 
There  are  men  and  women  in  this  very  The  light  of 
city,"  he  went  on,  "  who,  it  is  well  known,  ^" 
send  anonymously  to  the  newspapers 
'  puffs  '  and  gossip  about  themselves,  or 
their  friends  or  relatives  whom  they  are 
endeavoring  to  boost  up  the  social  lad 
der." 

This  long  funnel  of  a  car  contained 
many  people  who  enjoyed  this  close  prox 
imity  of  strangers.  Many  of  the  hotels 
make  no  provision  for  privacy,  and  guests 
are  expected  to  frequent  the  public  rooms, 
and,  be  it  said,  the  guests  as  a  rule  prefer 
this. 

I  have  been  in  a  small  inn  in  Nebraska 
where  we  were  all  obliged  to  come  from 
our  rooms  to  perform  our  ablutions  to 
gether  downstairs. 

The   large   summer   hotels  —  of    which 
177 


America  and  the  Americans 


An 

adventure 
at  the 
White 
House. 


more  later — offer  hardly  more  privacy  than 
bee-hives,  and  the  parlors,  piazzas,  and  din 
ing-rooms  are  liked  because  there  every 
body  is  close  to,  and  meets,  everybody 
else. 

Very  many  people  here,  I  was  surprised 
to  find,  although  they  can  afford  to  live 
apart,  in  houses  of  their  own,  much  prefer 
what  is  called  "  hotel  -life  "  and  live  in 
hotels  and  boarding-houses,  from  choice. 
There  is  more  life  and  go  and  change, 
one  sees  more  people,  one  is  left  less  to 
one's  self,  and  many  Americans,  both  men 
and  women,  prefer  this. 

I  shall  never  forget  on  my  former  visit  to 
America  my  adventure  at  the  President's 
residence  in  Washington.  I  was  taken 
there  by  a  member  of  the  federal  Senate. 
We  met  in  the  hall  downstairs  a  negress  who 
was  one  of  the  servants.  She  asked  me  if  I 
would  like  to  see  the  President.  Of  course 
I  said  "  yes."  Whereupon  I  followed  her 
upstairs,  she  knocked,  then  opened  a  door, 
and,  to  my  horror,  there  I  was  intruding 
upon  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
without  excuse  or  invitation. 
178 


Travel  a  I'Amtricaine 


I  was  not  thrown  out  of  the  window,  I 
was  invited  to  be  seated,  and  President 
Hayes  and  I  had  a  chat,  and  there  my  es 
teemed  friend,  the  senator,  afterward  found 
me.  It  may  be  that  this  particular  Presi 
dent  was  peculiar  in  his  domestic  arrange 
ments,  but  I  could  not  help  wondering  how 
such  intrusions  could  be  looked  upon  as 
other  than  a  bold-faced  robbery  of  the 
peoples'  time  and  energy,  as  represented 
in  their  chief  magistrate. 

I  am  told,  however,  that  the  people  take 

,.-  rr*    •    i        i  todict  ipsos 

offence  at  any  official  who  attempts  to  se- 
elude  himself,  or  who  puts  up  barriers 
between  him  and  them.  Just  how,  much- 
engaged  public  officers  contrive  to  do  their 
necessary  work  puzzled  me  somewhat.  I 
suggested,  perhaps  impertinently,  that  every 
public  official  be  enclosed  in  a  transparent 
cell  of  some  kind,  so  that  he  might  at 
all  times  be  open  to  inspection  by  the  peo 
ple  without  being  interrupted  by  them. 

When  I  returned  to  my  own  car  after 
my  sojourn  in  the  other,  I  found  a  scene  of 
great  activity.      A  negro  servant  was  per 
forming  a  miracle.     He  lifted  up  the  floor 
179 


America  and  the  Americans 


of  the  car,  he  pulled  down  the  ceiling,  and 

African       from  obscure  places  he  produced  curtains, 

-.nancy.         pillows  and  sheets,  blankets  and  mattresses, 

and  with  great  rapidity   and  dexterity  he 

transformed  the  whole  car  into  a  series  of 

curtained  compartments. 

He  pulled  aside  my  curtain  with  a  grin, 
and  lo  !  there  was  a  bed,  and  above  that 
another  bed,  and  in  the  upper  one  an  oc 
cupant,  and,  if  you  please,  a  woman  !  He 
apologized  for  this  by  saying  that  the  car 
was  very  crowded,  and  in  a  conversation 
with  him  later  I  learned  that,  as  a  rule,  it 
is  intended  that  only  men,  or  only  wom 
en,  should  be  put  in  layers  behind  the 
same  pair  of  curtains. 

However,  to  bed  I  went,  undressing 
with  some  difficulty,  and,  though  the  air  was 
close,  I  slept  well.  In  the  morning  there 
was  a  scene  of  indescribable  confusion. 
Men,  women,  and  children,  dishevelled  and 
partly  dressed,  appeared  at  intervals  from 
Democratic  behind  the  curtains,  making  their  way, 
some  to  one  end,  some  to  the  other,  of 
the  car,  where  in  a  very  small  compart 
ment  one  performed  his  ablutions.  Every- 
180 


Travel  a  VAmericaine 


one  was  good-humored,  and  we  brushed  our 
hair  and  rinsed  our  mouths,  and  washed 
our  hands  in  innocency,  fraternity,  and 
equality,  and,  be  it  said,  with  soap  and 
water  furnished  to  all  alike  by  the  railroad 
company. 

As  if  by  magic,  under  the  manipulations  />«/«»/ 
of  this  negro  prestidigitator,  the  floors  and 
ceilings  opened,  the  beds  disappeared,  and 
we  were  in  our  seats  again.  In  some  of 
the  trains  in  which  you  travel  for  days  and 
nights  together  on  a  long  journey,  there  are 
libraries,  pianos,  smoking-rooms,  barber 
shops,  and  dining-cars,  and  let  me  not  omit 
to  mention  type-writers — what  a  busy  peo 
ple  they  are,  to  be  sure  ! 

The  emigrant  trains  have  cars  no  better 
than  the  old  fourth -class  cars  in  Germany. 
People  in  the  less  luxurious  carriages  get 
out  at  the  stations  here  and  there  and  make 
a  hasty  meal. 

I  should  much  like  to  have  the  dissecting 
of  one  traveller  who  at  one  of  these  stop 
ping-places,  in  seven  minutes  by  my  watch, 
ate  two  little  bird-dishes  full  of  raw  oysters, 
four  ham  sandwiches,  a  large  section  of 
181 


America  and  the  Americans 

pie,  which  looked  as  though  it  were  stuffed 
with  insects — mince  pie,  they  call  it — and 
drank  one  glass  of  beer  and  two  bowls  of 
cafe  au  lait,  and  then  hurried  to  the  train 
Doughnuts  with  two  doughnuts  and  an  apple — a  dough- 

anddyspef-  ,.    •  -L       •  j     i  r  J   J  1. 

sia.  nut  is  a  braided  mass  of  sweetened  dough 

fried  in  lard.  The  Lord  have  mercy  on 
his  wife  and  children  if  they  are  his  com 
panions  when  he  undertakes  to  digest  these 
things  !  No  wonder  he  was  sallow  and 
thin  !  No  wonder  the  social  aristocracy 
here  is  recruited  in  more  than  one  instance 
from  those  enriched  by  the  sale  of  patent 
medicines ! 


182 


XIV 
The  Black  Belt 

ERE  it  not  for  the  fact  that 
there  is  about  one  negro  to 
every  eight  whites  in  the 
United  States,  the  sleeping- 
cars  might  solve  the  race  -  problem  here. 
The  employment  of  negroes  in  this  wise  is 
assuredly  well  adapted  to  the  negro,  and 
grateful  to  the  whites.  The  negro  is  singu 
larly  deft  of  hand,  generally  good-humored 
and  obliging,  and  obsequious  for  a  small 
sum  in  silver. 

But  my  visits  to  Washington,  Norfolk, 
and  one  or  two  other  places  in  the  South, 
showed  me  how  grave  is  this  problem  here, 
of  which  we  reck  so  little,  and,  indeed, 
hear  so  little,  in  Europe. 

In  the  four  States   of  Virginia,    North  A  few 
Carolina,  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia,  the  figures° 
white  population  in  1870  was  2,319,152; 
in    1890   it   had   increased  to  3,515,869. 


America  and  the  Americans 

In  those  same  four  States  the  negro  popu 
lation  in  1870  was  1,865,447;  in  1890 
it  had  increased  to  2,744,285.  In  the 
eight  States  of  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Mis 
sissippi,  Louisiana,  and  the  four  already 
mentioned,  which  together  are  called  the 
white  "  Black  Belt,"  the  white  population  is 

and  black  -     0  1111  i 

population.  5,658,517;  the  black  population,  5,155,- 
124,  and  at  the  past  rate  of  increase  the 
blacks  will  soon  (if  they  do  not  now,  the 
above  figures  being  for  1890)  outnumber 
the  whites. 

In  the  three  States  of  Mississippi,  Lou 
isiana,  and  South  Carolina,  the  negroes 
already  outnumber  the  whites  by  half  a 
million. 

But  why,  it  may  be  asked,  does  this 
ever-increasing  percentage  of  negroes  con 
stitute  a  menace  to  the  political  prosperity 
of  this  great  democracy  ?  For  the  same 
reason  that  so  many  other  problems  assume 
forbidding  proportions,  because  here  they 
are  trying  the  experiment  of  being  a  democ 
racy,  without  being  a  democracy. 

These  eight  millions  of  slaves  were  freed, 
and  then,  as  a  political  afterthought,  the 
184 


The  Black  Belt 


suffrage  was  given  to  them,  at  a  time  when 
something  like  ninety  per  cent,  of  them 
were  illiterate. 

It  was  the  great  President  Lincoln  him-  President 
self  who  said,  only  a  year  before  the  war  -view.  " 
between  the  North  and  South  broke  out : 
"  I  am  not,  and  never  have  been,  in  favor 
of  bringing  about  in  any  form  the  social 
and  political  equality  of  the  white  and 
black  races.  There  is  a  physical  difference, 
which  forbids  them  from  living  together 
on  terms  of  social  and  political  equality. 
And,  inasmuch  as  they  cannot  so  live, 
while  they  do  remain  together,  there  must 
be  a  position  of  superior  and  inferior,  and 
I,  as  much  as  any  other  man,  am  in  favor 
of  having  the  superior  position  assigned  to 
the  whites." 

Common-sense,  amounting  to  political 
genius,  was  the  characteristic  of  this  great 
American  statesman,  and  in  these  few 
words  just  quoted  is  expressed  what  is  prac 
tically  the  universal  sentiment  of  thought 
ful  Americans  on  this  subject.  To  give 
these  people  the  right  to  vote  was  a  mis 
take,  and  one  that  has  cost,  and  proba- 

185 


America  and  the  Americans 

bly  will  cost,   the  American  people  very 
dear. 

There  was  undoubtedly  much  sectional 
feeling  about  the  negroes  as  slaves,  but 
there  is  none  about  the  negro  as  an  inferior. 
In  Boston  the  negro  is  as  much  tabooed 
as  he  is  in  Norfolk.  Almost  fifty-seven 
per  cent,  of  them  are  illiterate  now,  and 
even  this,  I  was  told,  is  very  much  under 
the  real  figure,  for  in  some  States  they  are 
required  to  read  in  order  to  vote,  and  they 
are  all  ambitious  to  be  thought  to  be  able 
to  read,  so  that  the  statistician's  work  is 
peculiarly  difficult. 

Black  Of  the  total  number  of  prisoners  in  the 

acriminail  United  States,  57,310  are  whites,  and 
24,277  are  negroes.  In  short,  the  blacks 
are  as  one  to  almost  nine  of  the  population, 
but  as  one  to  almost  two  of  the  criminals. 
Nor  do  these  last  figures  take  into  account 
those  of  them  who  are  summarily  punished 
without  process  of  law. 

It  might  be  supposed,   from  these  few 

figures  perhaps,    that   I    am  proposing    to 

myself    an    arraignment    of  the    negroes. 

On  the  contrary,  I  like  the  negroes,  what 

186 


The  Black  Belt 


I  saw  of  them  in  America.  We  Europeans 
have  none  of  the  antipathy  to  the  negro  so 
common  here,  quite  as  common  in  the 
North  as  in  the  South,  let  me  add. 

A  negro  in  one  of  the  Northern  States    Their  social 

standing. 

could  no  more  gain  admittance  as  a  mem 
ber  to  a  first-class  club,  or  as  a  guest  in  a 
first-class  hotel,  than  to  the  dinner-table 
of  a  Southern  planter.  Equality  in  this 
as  in  other  cases  I  have  noted,  is  all  very 
well  as  a  theory,  but  in  practice  it  is  ad 
mitted  to  be  absurd.  In  Virginia  there 
are  separate  compartments  even  on  the  fer 
ries  for  the  blacks  and  the  whites  ;  and  in 
many  places  they  are  not  allowed  to  travel 
in  the  same  cars  with  the  whites,  and  be 
it  not  forgotten  in  this  connection  that  the 
war  closed  some  thirty  years  ago. 

Men  born  when  the  war  opened  are  now 
men  of  mature  years,  men  who  have  known 
nothing  of  slavery,  men  who  can  have 
bitter  feelings  on  this  subject  only  by  the 
attenuated  thread  of  inheritance  or  tradi 
tion,  and  yet  these  men  have  even  a  less 
friendly,  and  a  more  contemptuous,  feeling 
toward  the  negroes  than  their  ancestors. 
187 


America  and  the  Americans 

Pray   remember    that  I  am    not  giving 
these  impressions  from  what  I  have  heard 
from  politicians,  or  from  what  was  said,  so 
Non-  to  speak,  a  mon  intention.    No  one  knew  of 

Sentiments,  me  as  other  than  a  Frenchman  on  a  pass 
ing  diplomatic  errand,  and  I  was  not 
talked  to,  or  talked  at,  as  a  man  whom  it 
was  necessary  to  instruct  or  to  influence. 
This  printing  of  pages  from  my  journal  was 
no  more  in  their  thoughts  than  in  mine, 
and  this,  instead  of  being  a  disadvantage, 
was  a  positive  advantage ;  the  only  inter 
est,  if  it  have  interest  at  all,  of  my  journal 
being  that  I  was  merely  a  passing  guest  in 
America,  and  neither  suspected,  nor  sus 
pecting  myself,  of  being  a  future  critic. 

Said  a  large  planter  to  me  as  we  were 
riding  through  his  fields  :  "  The  great  mis- 
A  practical  take  they  make  in  the  North  is  in  holding 
that  they  freed  the  negroes.  They  didn't 
free  the  negroes,  they  freed  us!"  He 
meant  by  that  that  he  was  no  longer  re 
sponsible  as  he  had  been  before,  and  he 
spoke  as  though  he  were  happier  without 
the  responsibility. 

In  clubs,   hotels,  and  private  houses  I 
188 


The  Black  Belt 


kept  repeating  the  question  :  "Do  you  re 
gret  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  ?  ' ' 
The  answer,  without  exceptions,  was  always 
the  same  hearty  "No!"  The  only  in 
dividuals  who  told  me  that  they  regretted 
the  abolition  of  slavery  were  negroes.  They 
are  children  in  intellect  and  in  morals,  and 
many  of  them  who  had  been  slaves,  and 
who  are  now  free,  would,  no  doubt,  prefer 
to  shift  the  responsibilities  of  life  back  on 
to  a  master's  shoulders  again. 

Even  in  so  large  a  city  as  Norfolk  the 
negroes  retain  their  old-time  customs.  They 
come  to  the  houses  as  servants,  but  they  go 
back  to  their  own  cabins  and  small  houses 
to  sleep  at  night,  and  they  deem  it  one  of 
their  rights  to  carry  home  with  them,  each 
evening,  a  basketful  of  scraps  and  odds 
and  ends  from  the  kitchen,  and  often,  it  is 
hinted,  they  do  not  confine  their  pickings 
to  mere  odds  and  ends. 

Small  thefts,    small  lies,   and  living  en  African 

etk  ics. 

libre  grace  or  comme  les  oiseaux,  are  not 
counted  among  them  as  sins,  though  their 
religious  enthusiasm  at  their  own  meetings 
is  more  violent  than  anything  I  have  ever 
189 


America  and  the  Americans 

seen  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  A  cer 
tain  negress  was  much  hurt  when  she  was 
dismissed  for  stealing  one  of  her  mistress's 
gowns,  after  giving  as  an  excuse  that  she 
wanted  it  to  be  baptized  in  !  No  doubt 
she  considered  the  mistress  as  altogether 
lacking  in  piety  of  the  right  sort. 

I  trust  that  I  have  not  said  too  much  of 
the  pleasures  of  eating  and  drinking  in 
America,  but  it  were  surely  a  mere  mock 
ery  of  reality  not  to  note  the  fried  chicken, 
the  waffles,  the  shad,  the  shad-roes  (deli 
cious  morsels),  the  corn-bread,  the  reed- 
birds,  the  terrapin,  the  ducks  (red-head 
and  canvas- back),  the  broiled  robbins,  the 
smoked  hams,  the  variety  of  hot  cakes  and 
rolls,  the  melons,  peaches  and  strawber 
ries  of  this,  Brillat-Savarin's  own  country. 
Nor  should  I  be  content  to  let  these 
pages  go,  without  a  word  of  the  boundless 
Southern  and  charming  hospitality  of  my  Southern 
1 ' y'  hosts,  and  the  friends  of  my  hosts.  I  know 
little  of  their  past  errors  and  trials,  but  I 
have  every  reason  to  know  that  now  they 
are  most  generous  and  courteous.  One 
hears  occasionally  from  some  widowed  and 

190 


The  Black  Belt 


childless  matron  a  note  of  bitterness  about 
the  past,  but  who  would  not  forgive  her 
that? 

There  is  far  more  bitterness  of  feeling 
between  Frenchmen  and  Germans,  and 
even  between  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen, 
than  between  the  Southerners  and  the 
Northerners.  There  seems  to  be  a  gentle 
manly  feeling  that  "  we  had  a  good  fight 
for  it,  and  we  were  beaten ;  now  let's  say 
no  more  about  it." 

If  I  may  be  permitted  to  say  a  word  The  carpet* 
in  this  rather  delicate  family  controversy, 
it  would  be  that  the  Northern  politician  of 
the  small  and  conscienceless  stripe  has  done 
more  than  anybody  else  since  the  war  to 
keep  up  the  irritation.  He  profits  by  a 
certain  amount  of  sectional  feeling,  and, 
therefore,  he  does  nothing  to  allay  it.  He 
knows  as  well  as  the  Southerner  that  it  is 
ruin  to  allow  the  negroes  to  exercise  the 
suffrage  uncontrolled — in  several  of  the 
States  just  after  the  war  it  was  actual  ruin 
— and  yet  he  harps  upon  the  fact  that  the 
negro  vote  is  not  counted. 

In  the  District  of  Columbia  the  negro 

191 


America  and  the  Americans 

does  not  vote,  and  several  Northern  federal 
senators  voted  that  the  negro  be  dis 
franchised  there,  and  no  one  of  them 
dreams  of  wishing  now  that  it  were  other 
wise,  it  must  be  then  a  sign  of  hypoc 
risy  to  make  so  much  of  the  fact  that  the 
negro  vote  is  not  counted  in  the  South.  It 
is  not  counted,  it  ought  not  to  be  counted, 
and  to  count  it  would  mean  bankruptcy 
and  commercial  prostration  now,  as  was 
the  case  before.  The  mistake  was  made, 
and  in  the  South  they  make  the  best  prac 
tice  they  can  of  a  bad  theory,  and  to  do 
anything  else  would  only  redound  to  their 
own  and  to  the  negroes'  ruin. 

There   are   notable   exceptions;  but  to 

acteristics.      ^   ^  ^   negroes   are   shiftless,   CareleSS, 

good-natured,  and  improvident.  Their 
code  of  morals  is  entirely  different  from 
that  of  civilized  whites,  either  in  Europe 
or  in  America.  Their  facial  angle  is  seventy 
degrees,  that  of  the  white  man  eighty- 
two  ;  their  morals  are  those  of  les  oiscaux. 
San  Domingo,  Liberia,  South  Carolina, 
and  Alabama — at  the  close  of  the  war  when 
negroes  were  in  political  control — are  con- 
192 


The  Black  Belt 


elusive  evidence  of  their  inability  to  govern 
themselves;  like  ill-bred  children,  liberty 
has  made  some  of  them  arrogant  and  in 
clined  to  push  in  where  they  are  not 
wanted. 

These  facts  being  true,  it  is,  so  it  seems 
to  me  at  least,  a  matter  upon  which  South 
erners  ought  to  be  congratulated,  and  upon 
which  all  Americans  ought  to  rejoice,  that 
these  millions  of  negroes  in  the  South  live 
in  the  midst  of  their  white  brethren  in  such 
security  and  peace. 

The  lynchings  and  burning  of  negroes,  Lynching. 
and  other  atrocious  cruelties,  are  punish 
ments  meted  out  for  unmentionable  crimes. 
In  London,  Paris,  and  Berlin  the  law  is 
one  thing;  in  Texas,  which  covers  about 
the  same  area  as  Europe,  and  in  other 
Southern  States,  swift  legal  redress  is  next 
to  impossible  without  a  standing  army  of 
police. 

Remember  your  own  wives,  sisters,  and 
baby-girls ;  remember  that  you  are  not 
in  Paris  or  Lyons  or  Marseilles,  but  in 
a  thinly  populated  wilderness,  and  see  if 
your  eyes  do  not  wander  instinctively  to 

T93 


America  and  tbe  Americans 

your  gun-case  or  your  pistol-drawer  !  Re 
member  that  these  Southerners  are  Saxons 
and  Huguenots  one  or  two  hundred  years 
away  from  home,  and  in  this,  as  in  many 
other  painful  affairs  of  this  life,  perhaps 
comprcndrc  c  est  pardonntr. 


194 


XV 

Improvidence 

IT  is  in   the   South   more  espe 
cially,    but   it    applies   to   the 
country  at   large,    that  one  is 
shocked  by  the  wastefulness  of 
the  Americans. 

At  a  certain  house  in  Baltimore  I  was 
permitted  to  go  into  the  kitchen.  There 
must  have  been  a  dozen,  perhaps  twenty, 
negroes  in  these  rooms  below  stairs.  I 
asked  my  hostess  if  she  found  it  necessary 
to  have  so  many  servants.  "Oh,  those  An 
are  not  all  my  servants,"  she  replied,  "  but 
there  are  always  a  lot  of  hangers-on  in  the 
kitchen  !  "  I  could  fancy  the  horror  of 
my  sister,  of  my  mother,  should  such  a 
sight  greet  their  eyes  on  descending  to  their 
kitchen,  but  my  hostess  took  it  most  good- 
humoredly,  and  answered  the  grins  and 
the  shining  rows  of  white  teeth,  which 


America  and  the  Americans 

greeted  her  in  her  own  kitchen,  with  gra 
cious  words  and  kindly  nods. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  majority  of 
the  house-servants  in  America  are  Irish 
and  negroes,  the  two  most  wasteful  and  un 
economical  races  we  know  and  of  a  differ 
ent  creed  from  their  masters.  It  was  told 
me  by  one  of  the  oldest  employees  in  the 
most  famous  restaurant  in  New  York,  that 
twenty  years  ago,  before  there  were  as 
many  well-conducted  restaurants  and  ho 
tels  as  now,  in  their  establishment,  with 
French  French  cooks  and  European  servants,  they 
saved  so  much  that  was  thrown  away  by 
other  American  proprietors  of  similar 
places,  that  their  profits  upon  waste  alone 
enabled  them  for  years  to  remain  beyond 
rivalry.  "We  made  dishes  out  of  what 
our  neighbors  would  have  thrown  away, 
and  dishes,  too,  that  people  from  all  over 
the  country  came  to  this  historical  restau 
rant  to  eat."  It  was  a  Frenchman  who 
told  me  that,  and  I  believe  him. 

Of  course  it  was  not  possible  very  often 
to  visit  the  kitchens  and  to  discover  what 
was   thrown    away  in  the  houses   of  my 
196 


Improvidence 


friends.  But  some  of  my  hosts  were  so 
kind  as  to  tell  me  the  costs  of  their  kitch-  cost  of 
ens,  their  servants,  their  stables,  and  their 
wine-cellars.  Butter  at  five  francs  a  pound, 
fresh  eggs  at  three  francs  a  dozen,  cham 
pagne  at  one  hundred  and  seventy-five 
francs  a  dozen — and  this  not  the  best — 
servants  at  the  ruinous  wages  I  have  men 
tioned  elsewhere,  rents  in  proportion,  and, 
worse  than  all,  careless,  uninterested  ser 
vants,  who  clear  up  after  each  meal  by 
tossing  everything  that  is  left  into  the 
refuse-heap. 

No   wonder   there  are   ever  -  increasing  Europe 
complaints  that  it  costs  too  much  to  live  ^f^fa 
here.     No  wonder  thousands  of  American 
families  have  learnt  the  secret,  and  adopted 
the  plan  of  going  to  Europe  for  a  year, 
every  now  and  then,  to  save  money. 

The  country  itself  has  been  somewhat 
to  blame  for  this  lack  of  economy.  Iron, 
gold,  silver,  copper,  wheat-fields  for  the 
mere  ploughing,  thousands  of  square  miles 
of  grazing-land  for  the  taking,  fish,  flesh, 
fowl,  and  fruit  in  bewildering  profusion, 
millions  of  acres  of  good  land  still  unoccu- 

197 


America  and  the  Americans 

pied ;  no  wonder  such  a  wealthy  mother, 
careless  of  her  bounties,  has  made  her 
children  spendthrifts. 

I  have  met  Americans  abroad  who  lived 
at  the  best  hotels,  who  seemed  to  have 
plenty  to  spend,  but  who  here,  I  found, 
have  three  servants  and  entertain  not  at  all. 
They  make  money  fast,  then  spend  that, 
then  make  more,  and  so  on. 

We  old-fashioned  Europeans  like  to  feel 
that  we  are  living  on  our  incomes,  not 
on  our  capital,  but  here  in  the  fresh  be 
wilderment  of  ever-increasing  wealth  they 
spend  their  capital ;  hence  it  is  that  many 
Americans  in  Europe  give  the  impression 
of  having  more  than  they  have.  Not 
through  any  intention  on  their  part,  I 
fancy,  to  mislead,  but  merely  because  our 
standard  or  expenditure  is  the  income  from 
capital,  whue  theirs  is  very  ouen  capital 
itself. 

Then,  too,  the  burden  of  expenditure  is 
not  placed  here  as  it  is  in  Europe.  The 
European  looks  forward  to  his  own  house, 
his  own  stable,  to  servants  and  domestic 
comfort.  The  American,  all  too  often, 

198 


Improvidence 


saves  on  his  home  to  spend  outside  of  it. 
I  mean  by  that,  that  there  is  to  European 
eyes  a  disproportionate  expenditure  on  the 
dress  of  the  women  and  the  children,  on 
meals  at  restaurants,  on  theatre-going,  on 
summer  holidays,  on  general  lavishness 
outside  the  home. 

People  who  in  France  and  England 
would  have  servants  enough,  who  would  en 
tertain  more  in  their  homes,  who  would 
put  aside  each  year  for  their  children,  who 
would  rigidly  restrict  the  outside  expen 
ditures,  are  represented  here  by  family  af 
ter  family,  in  hotels  and  boarding-houses, 
people  who  travel  in  Europe,  who  spend 
each  year  about  what  they  earn,  who  enter 
tain  seldom  or  never,  and  who  do  not  know 
even  what  it  means  to  be  properly  cared 
for  by  servants. 

You  need  travel  only  as  far  as  Chicago  Mushroom 
to  see   a  city  which    fifty  years   ago  was  growth' 
merely  a  traders'  post  with  a  few  log -huts, 
a  city  where  a  man-servant  in  the  house, 
even  now,  is  as  rare  as  the  egg  of  a  great 
auk,  and  yet  a  city  of  enormous  prosper 
ity.       I  was  driven  about  in  Chicago  on  a 
199 


America  and  the  Americans 

coach  with  four  horses,  I  visited  two  luxuri- 
ous  clubs,  I  saw  miles  of  expensive  houses, 
.  and  I  left  cards  at,  at  least,  three  houses 
where  the  door  was  opened  by  a  slatternly 
woman-servant  with  her  sleeves  rolled  up — 
perhaps  I  called  at  an  unusual  hour ;  I  do 
not  know  as  to  that,  none  of  us  is  infallible. 

We  in  France  laugh  a  good  deal  at  the 
overdressed  women  of  the  servant  and 
lower  middle  class  in  England,  but  the 
Irish,  Swedes,  and  Germans  here  appear 
in  truly  gorgeous  raiment — seal -skin  and 
velvet  and  silk  and  plumes  and  flowers 
I  have  seen  repeatedly  on  them — and  these 
good  Americans  pay  them  fabulous  wages, 
receive  in  return  the  worst  service  in  the 
world,  and  look  surprised  when  you  suggest 
that  perhaps  matters  are  a  little  upsidedown. 

I  have  seen  a  German  woman,  scarce  able 
to  speak  English,  with  three  children,  done 
up  in  velveteen  and  silks  and  sashes,  who 
at  home  would  not  dare  to  appear  with  her 
family  so  clad  for  fear  of  the  wholesale  ridi 
cule  she  would  invite. 

These  immigrants  soon  grasp  the  failing 
of  the  Americans,  and  presume  upon  their 

200 


Improvidence 


indifference  and  take  advantage  of  their 
good-nature  to  an  extent  that  simply  dum- 
founds  the  European  who  has  heard  of  how 
sharp,  how  shrewd,  and  calculating  are  the 
Americans. 

I  sometimes  think  that  these  people  who  inebriation, 
have  been  rich  for  only  two  generations  are  prosperity. 
just  a  little  mad.  Money  and  prosperity 
have  come  so  fast,  immense  fortunes  have 
been  made  so  quickly,  the  change  from  the 
most  meagre  and  curtailed  life  of  the  first 
quarter  of  this  century  to  the  oriental  pro 
fusion  of  expenditure  in  the  larger  cities 
now,  has  turned  their  heads.  They  fancy 
that  the  perpetual  spring  of  prosperity 
bubbles  up  in  this  great  land,  and  that  they 
need  take  no  care  for  the  morrow. 

In  the  ten  years,  1880-90,  their  debt  de 
creased  5,152,786,300  francs,  or  more  than 
500,000,000  francs  a  year. 

In  the  aggregate  of  all  expenditures,  na 
tional,  State,  and  local,  the  receipts  for 
one  year,  lately,  exceeded  the  expenditures 
by  77,914,460  francs.  One  must  admit 
that  such  figures  may  make  a  people  fool 
ishly  confident. 

201 


America  and  the  Americans 

What  does  this  occidental  nabob  care  i  f 
servants  rob  him,  laugh  at  him  behind  his 
back,  and  serve  him  ill !  What  does  he 
care  if  his  wife  dresses  far  beyond  her  needs 
or  her  station  !  What  does  he  care  if  in 
the  drawing-rooms  of  New  York  one  sees 
more  jewels  worn  than  in  any  of  the  pal 
aces  of  Europe  !  What  does  he  care  if  the 
poverty-stricken  Irish,  the  needy  Swedes, 
and  Scandinavians,  the  penniless  Italians, 
the  cormorant  Jews,  the  Poles  and  Hunga 
rians,  and  the  Chinese — until  recently — 
flock  here  to  fatten  upon  his  wastefulness  ! 
What  harm  can  he  see  in  the  nauseating 
frequency  of  the  talk  about  what  things 
cost,  how  much  this  one  and  that  one  has, 
by  men  and  women,  and  even  children  ! 
Monte  Hogs  and  bullocks,  in  processions  miles 

wealth?  '  l°ng>  hurry  through  his  slaughter-houses; 
his  wheat-fields  are  measured,  not  by  paltry 
acres  but  by  square  miles.  He  has  a  net 
work  of  thousands  of  miles  of  mortgaged 
railroads  ;  five  thousand  millions  of  francs 
are  invested  here,  it  is  said,  by  Europeans 
whose  eyes  have  been  dazzled  by  these 
opportunities,  his  cities  jump  from  a  log- 
202 


Improvidence 


cabin  to  a  population  of  over  a  million  in 
one  short  lifetime,  a  civil  war  costs  him  half 
a  million  sons  or  so,  and  thousands  of  mill 
ions  of  francs;  financial  panics,  anarchist 
revolutions,  a  band  of  Turks  in  Utah  keep 
ing  harems  by  the  grace  of  divine  revela 
tion,  millions  of  francs  stolen  from  State  and 
city  treasuries,  these  are  nothing  to  him,  for 
in  spite  of  it  all  he  put  aside  between  1880 
and  1890  more  than  500,000,000  francs 
each  year.  No  wonder  he  thinks  that  he 
can  never  be  seriously  ill,  never  be  without 
plenty,  and  to  spare. 

Economy  goes  by  the  name  of  meanness   Economy 
here.     When    I   see    my  dollars  going  as  parsimony. 
though  they  were  francs,  when  I  offer  my 
poor  pour-boiresj    when    I   say    I    cannot 
afford  this  or  that,  when  I  give  my  small 
parting  gifts,  a  book  or  some  other  trifle,  I 
feel  that  these  people  look  upon  me  with 
pity,  as  lean  and  hungry,  and,  perhaps,  as 
parsimonious. 

But  our  vocabularies  are  different,  as  are 
our  measurements  and  our  expectations. 
Economy  is  not  meanness  with  us,  nor  is 
carefulness  deemed  parsimony,  nor  is  a 
competency  expected  to  be  wealth,  nor  is 

203 


America  and  the  Americans 

lavishness  supposed  to  be  refinement,  nor 
are  material  possessions  mistaken  for  cult 
ure,  nor  fine  feathers  taken  for  fine  birds. 

It  is  all  like  a  dream  of  fat  kine  to  me, 
for  I  have  been  trained  to  economy,  ob 
liged  to  be  careful,  educated  to  feel  that  a 
gentleman  should  be  master  of  his  pos 
sessions,  not  merely  paraded  about  the 
world  upon  them,  like  a  monkey  riding  an 
elephant  in  a  street-show. 

Nor  am   I  in  the  least   convinced,  on 

sober  second  thought,   that   this   country 

has    found    an    Aladdin's    lamp    that    will 

never  go  out.     My  quiet  friend  who  has 

childish       been  so  good  to  me  in  New  York,  tells  me 

suspicions  11. 

and  that  money  used  to  bring  ten  per  cent. — 

that  now  it  fetches  only  four  or  five.  He 
tells  me  that  this  decrease  in  dividends 
is  slowly  making  itself  felt  among  the 
masses,  and  that  they  do  not,  or  will  not, 
understand  that  it  is  a  universal  economic 
law  which  is  slowly  closing  its  iron  hand 
on  America.  He  says  also  that  there  are 
signs  of  revolution  about,  murmurings  of 
discontent  on  the  part  of  the  poor  against 
the  rich,  in  the  air.  The  poor  think,  after 

204 


Improvidence 


these  years  of  seemingly  unending  pros 
perity,  that  the  rich  have  stolen  away  the 
prosperity,  and  that  to  attack  them  is  to  get 
it  back  again.  They  are  even  now  crying 
out  for  more  money,  more  money,  as 
though  money  could  be  turned  out  by 
machinery  at  Washington,  the  national 
capital ;  as  though  money  were  anything 
other  than  a  simple  sum  in  arithmetic,  the 
multiplication  of  the  fruits  of  the  earth  by 
labor.  We  know  that  money  is  only  that, 
but  they  do  not  know  it  here,  or  will  not 
admit  it  if  they  do  ! 

It  is  little  short  of  comical  to  hear  and 
to  read  how  these  spendthrifts  propose  to 
print  paper,  and  to  call  it  money ;  or  to 
stamp  silver  with  an  American  eagle  and 
the  name  of  God,  and  call  it  money. 

Alas  !  great  wealth  has  its  responsibilities 
and  its  lessons,  whether  the  heir  be  an 
individual  or  a  nation.  Neither  as  indi 
viduals  nor  as  a  nation  have  they  felt  the 
responsibilities  or  learnt  the  lesson  here. 
A  Frenchman,  an  Englishman,  or  an  Aus 
trian,  and  even  some  Russians,  feel  that 
they  must  take  care  of  money  ;  in  the  case 
205 


America  and  the  Americans 

of  very  many  Americans,  at  any  rate,  they 
feel  only  one  duty  toward  money,  and  that 
is  to  spend  it. 
French  In  France  there  is  one  savings  bank  ac- 

savings.  ,  r        ,          •>       •,    r 

count,  averaging  over  five  hundred  francs, 
for  every  six  men,  women,  and  children. 
The  total  yearly  deposits  in  these  banks  is 
in  round  numbers  1,000,000,000  francs. 
]f  we  add  to  these  the  Postal  savings  banks 
as  well,  there  is  one  account  for  every  four 
and  one  half  people  in  all  France.  Thou 
sands  of  people  in  France  look  forward  to 
an  assured  income  of  5,000  to  10,000 
francs  per  annum,  and  even  less,  as  a  hap 
py  outcome  of  years  of  steady  toil.  Pray, 
where  is  the  American,  even  though  his 
mother  was  an  Irish  peasant,  or  his  father 
a  Polish  Jew,  or  a  Swedish  laborer,  whose 
dream  is  to  have  only  an  income  of  $1,000 
a  year ! 

Contempt          This  is   the  heart  of   the    trouble,    the 

competency,   root  of  the  discontent  here.     Their  aims 

are  too  high,  their  expectations  absurdly 

out  of  proportion.     They  are  not  satisfied 

with  enough,  they  want  too  much,  in  order 

that  they  may  waste  some  of  it  in  the  vul- 

206 


Improvidence 


garities  that  are  the  fashion.  By  what  law, 
human  or  divine,  these  people  hope  to  have, 
all  of  them,  more,  each  individual,  than  the 
individuals  and  families  of  other  countries,  I 
cannot  understand.  They  have  had  more — 
that  is  readily  explained  by  the  opening  up 
of  a  marvellous  country — but  in  time  things 
will  right  themselves,  and  a  very  little  fig 
uring  will  show  the  futility  of  supposing 
that  75,000,000  of  people  on  one  side  of 
the  Atlantic  are  all  to  have  thousands,  while 
a  far  larger  number  of  people,  more  indus 
trious  and  more  economical,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  are  only  to  have  tens 
and  twenties. 

I  thank  God  that  I  am  not  to  be  here,   A  hard 

lesson, 

that  my  mother  and  my  sister  are  not  to  oe 
here,  when  these  millions  come  face  to  face 
with  the  fact  that  they  must  learn  to  be  eco 
nomical,  for  that  is  the  whole  of  the  prob 
lem. 

I  foresee  a  mad  war  of  races,  interests, 
and  classes  when  that  time  shall  come,  and 
sometimes  I  think  it  is  not  so  very  far  off 
even  now. 

There  are  8,000,000  negroes  here,  there 

207 


America  and  the  Americans 

Some  are  about  1,750,000  people  here  who  can- 

1  'e  not  speak  English,  the  foreign-born  popu 
lation  numbers  over  9,000,000,  and  the  il 
literates  over  ten  years  of  age  number  near 
ly  6,500,000,  aggregating  more  than  one- 
third  of  the  total  population. 

This  occidental  nabob  is  undoubtedly  a 
very  vigorous  man,  but  these  figures  show 
that  he  has  some  tough  morsels  to  digest. 
If  I  were  he  I  should  take  particular  care  of 
my  health,  no  matter  how  well  and  strong 
I  felt  myself  to  be. 


208 


XVI 

L'Enfant  Terrible 

NE  of  the  books  given  me  to 
read    before   my  first   visit   to 
America  was  a  story  by  Mr. 
*   Henry  James,  entitled,   I  be 
lieve,   "Daisy  Miller."     In  it  is  a  short 
account  of  an  American  boy,  who,  among  A 
other  things,  is  made  to  say :   "  My  pa  is  boy° 
all-fired  rich,  you  bet !  " 

I  asked  another  American  novelist,  well 
known  to  all  readers  of  English  whom  I  met 
in  New  York,  if  the  American  boy  was  in 
the  habit  of  making  such  vulgar  speeches. 
"You  are  travelling  about  in  America," 
said  he,  "take  note  of  the  behavior  of 
American  children  in  public  and  in  private, 
and  then  tell  me  what  you  have  decided 
about  them.  You  come  here  with  a  fresh 
eye.  What  is  indifferent  to  me  is  new  and 
notable  to  you,  and  when  you  have  been 
here  three  months  you  will  know  many 
209 


America  and  the  Americans 

things  that  custom  has  made  me  too  dull  to 
discover." 

I  believe  this  is  true,  not  only  in  regard 
to  children,  or  any  other  one  subject,  but  to 
most  subjects.  The  passing  stranger  falls 
into  many  errors,  but  he  hears  and  sees 
hundreds  of  details  that  the  native  has 
grown  so  accustomed  to  that  they  no  longer 
attract  his  attention.  Many  men  can  sleep 
and  eat  and  work  with  the  din  of  the  city 
streets  in  their  ears,  for  they  have  grown 
deaf  to  them.  The  countryman  who  comes 
to  the  city  hears  each  different  noise,  and 
for  weeks  can  neither  sleep  nor  work  in 
comfort.  It  may  well  be  that  I  exaggerate 
the  impressions  I  chronicle  here,  but,  at  any 
rate,  they  are  noises  that  I  actually  heard 
with  my  ears,  and  sights  that  I  saw  with 
my  own  eyes. 

It  is  three  months  and  more  since  I  saw 
my  friend,  the  American  novelist,  in  New 
York,  and  when  I  see  him  I  fancy  that  there 
will  be  a  satiric  twinkle  in  his  eye  when  I 
broach  the  subject  of  the  American  child. 

I  have  heard  the  Henry  James  incident, 
not  once,  but  several  times.  I  will  give 
210 


L' Enfant  Terrible 


every 
where. 


only  one  example.     The  boy  was  perhaps  Another 
twelve  or  fourteen  years  old.      His  parents  Miner  boy. 
were,  to  all   appearance,  rich.     We  were 
sitting  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer,  and  some 
remark  was   made   about    lifts    in    private 
houses.     The  boy  was  asked  if  there  was 
one  in  his  house.      "  No,"  was  the  reply, 
"but  my  popper  [papa  was  intended]  is 
rich  enough  to  have  one  if  he  wanted  to  !  " 

It  is  needless  to  give  other  verbatim  re-   children, 

.,       .      . .  ,  r  .  children 

ports  of  similar  speeches  from  American 
children ;  suffice  it  to  record  the  fact  that 
this  was  by  no  means  the  only  one  I  heard. 
Often  I  stood  about  and,  without  appearing 
to  do  so,  I  listened  to  the  conversations  of 
different  groups  of  children — this  is  easy, 
often  unavoidable  in  America  —  for  the 
children  are  everywhere  en  evidence.  They 
are  in  the  railway -trains,  in  the  tram-cars, 
in  the  hotel  corridors,  in  the  restaurants,  at 
the  theatres ;  they  dine  at  night  at  the 
table  (Fhote  with  their  parents,  they  come 
down  and  order  their  own  breakfasts  in  the 
hotel  restaurant,  and  in  some  of  the  sum 
mer  hotels  they  are  like  flies  in,  on,  around, 
and  into,  everything.  They  talk  back  to, 

211 


America  and  the  Americans 

contradict,  and  disobey  their  parents  in  the 
presence  of  strangers,  and  there  is  no 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  giving  them 
special  privileges,  simply  because  they  have 
these  without  irksome  legal  formalities. 

Nor  are  these  poor,  or,  according  to 
American  standards,  ill-bred,  children  of 
whom  I  am  writing.  All  the  children 
whose  manners  and  speeches  I  have  noted 
down,  belong  to  parents  who  could  not  pos 
sibly  live  as  they  do  with  less  than  an  in 
come  of  from  thirty  to  sixty  thousand 
francs  a  year.  Hence  they  are  children  to 
whom  the  best  sources  of  education  and 
companionship  are  open. 

Americans,   of  whatever  age,   are  very 

prone  to  tell  you  what  things  cost,  because 

about  many  of  the  rarer  possessions  among 

this  world's  goods,  that  is  the  only  accurate 

knowledge  of  them  they  have.      But  it  is 

unspeakably  shocking  to  hear  this  continual 

Money          placing  of  a  money  value  upon  everything 

values.         by  children — "  My  sled  cost  so  much,  my 

pony,  my  shoes,  my  coat,  my  hat  cost  so 

much  !  "     You  hear  it  like  a  chorus  from 

children   everywhere.      They  tell  one  an- 

212 


L'Enfant  Terrible 


other  what  this,  that,  and  the  other  posses 
sion  of  theirs  cost,  and  they  boast  of  how 
rich  are  their  respective  parents. 

They  are  irreverent  and  independent  to 
a  shocking  degree.  What  I  have  never 
seen  approached  for  barbaric  heartlessness, 
I  saw  in  New  York  City,  when  I  actually 
saw  some  small  boys  throwing  snowballs  at 
a  funeral  procession. 

It  was  quite  needless  to  ask  my  novelist 
friend  about  American  children  after  this 
experience.  Pliny  should  have  visited 
America  before  writing  somewhat  lugubri 
ously  of  the  children  of  his  own  time  and 
country  as  follows  :  "  How  many  are  there 
who  will  give  place  to  a  man  out  of  respect 
for  his  age  and  dignity?  They  are  shrewd 
men  already  and  know  everything;  they 
are  in  awe  of  nobody,  but  take  themselves 
for  their  own  example. ' '  Every  word  of 
this  is  true  of  these  American  children. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  politics  are  as  they 
are  here,  if  the  politicians  are  to  be  drawn 
from  these  young  Saxon  Bedouins.  It  is 
no  wonder  that,  growing  up  as  they  do 
without  discipline  and  without  manners, 
213 


America  and  the  Americans 

they  cannot  play  their  youthful  games  when 
at  college  against  one  another  without  the 
quarrels  and  accusations  and  tu  quoques  of 
the  prize-ring  and  the  pot-house. 

Here  again  we  see  the  theory  of  inde 
pendence  carried  even  into  the  realm  of 
domestic  life,  and  with  what  dire  results. 
Patria         There  is  no  such  thing  as  the  patria  po- 

potestas.  .    .  ...  , 

testasj  no  recognition  of  authority,  even  by 
the  children  of  a  household  to  their  natural 
head. 

In  some  of  the  homes  that  I  visited,  it 
was  only  too  apparent  that  "home"  was 
merely  a  fa$on  de  parler.  There  was  no 
unity  of  thought,  speech,  or  action.  Each 
one  was  a  unit,  even  the  youngest,  and 
each  had  his  friends,  his  opinions,  his  en 
gagements,  and  even  his  affections,  and  each 
one  was  infallible.  The  timidity  in  assert- 
indiffer-  inef  even  lawful  authority,  and  the  con- 

ence  to  . 

authority,  tempt  for  it,  which  one  sees  in  American 
politics,  is  learnt,  I  firmly  believe,  in  these 
ill-regulated,  or  rather  these  unregulated, 
homes. 

Neither  the  unwritten  law  of  affection  of 
French  home-life,  nor  the  unwritten  law  of 
214 


L 'Enfant  Terrible 


allegiance  to  the  head  of  the  family  of 
English  home-life,  obtains  in  American 
home-life.  What  is  erroneously  called  in 
dulgence  of  children  by  parents  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  neglect  of  children  by 
parents  —  and  here,  of  parents  by  their 
children. 

In  Europe  we  are  prone  to  think,  at 
least,  that  the  spoiled  child  is  an  excep 
tion,  but  here  the  spoiled  child  is  the  rule 
rather  than  the  exception,  and  a  very  dis 
agreeable  and  inconvenient  rule  he  is,  too, 
to  the  stranger,  though  the  native  has  evi 
dently  ceased  to  notice  him.  The  Ameri 
can  takes  the  American  child,  nuisance 
though  he  is,  as  he  takes  his  thieving 
politicians,  his  Irish  municipal  rulers,  and 
his  tyrannous  trusts  and  corporations, 
good-humoredly,  and  that,  at  least  for  the 
present,  is  the  end  of  it.  He  does  not 
bother  his  head  about  the  future. 

I  have  sometimes  thought,  while  travel 
ling  in  America,  that  this  almost  criminal 
negligence  on  every  hand  about  the  future,   Past  and 
must  be  in  some  way  related  to  the  fact  J 
that   they  have  no  past  here.     Their  con- 


America  and  the  Americans 

tinued  prosperity  for  a  hundred  years  has 
made  them  careless  and  thoughtless,  and 
only  some  awful  political  or  financial  catas 
trophe  will  bring  them  to  their  senses. 

A  rich  man  can  afford  to  be  robbed  for 
awhile,  and  he  can  afford  to  be  carelessly 
lavish  and  optimistic  for  awhile,  but  not 
forever.  This  Rich  Man  of  the  Western 
hemisphere  must  take  account  of  stock 
some  day  soon,  must  realize  that  the  op 
portunity  for  vast  and  rapid  accumulations 
of  wealth,  is  not  so  frequent  nor  so  easy 
as  it  once  was,  and  that  his  own  vigor  is 
declining  somewhat ;  and  when  that  time 
comes,  this  chronicle  which  is  read  to-day 
as  perhaps  impertinent  criticism,  will  be 
read  then  as  prophecy. 

This  almost  universal  feeling  about  the 
future,  that  it  will  take  care  of  itself,  this 
universal  hopefulness,   so  characteristic  of 
the  Americans,  make  the  position  of  Amer 
ican  children  more  comprehensible.     The 
The  child  a  Americans  are,  as  a  people,   political,  so 
cial,    and   financial  rainbow  chasers.      No 
matter  what  the  past  or  the  present,   they 
see  at  the  other  end  of  the  rainbow  pros- 
216 


L' Enfant  Terrible 


parity.  The  child  naturally  becomes  the 
symbol  of  this.  The  child  is  all  future. 
He  is  taken  into  account  in  this  country, 
therefore,  as  a  serious  and  privileged  fac- 

TT      .  i      j    •     ^  •  •,        and  the 

tor.  He  is  pushed  into  prominence  in  pub-  tree. 
lie,  and  in  private  his  impertinences  are 
laughed  at,  and  quoted,  and  he  is  a  shrewd, 
irreverent,  disobedient,  and  sophisticated 
mortal  before  he  sheds  his  knickerbockers. 
The  results  do  not  belie,  but  support  this 
assertion.  The  political  and  domestic  dis 
obedience  and  selfishness,  which  end  in 
political  misrule  and  domestic  revolt,  are 
more  common  here  than  elsewhere.  The 
child  is  father  to  the  "boss"  and  the 
divorcee. 

Young  girls  from  fifteen  to  twenty  con 
duct  their  flippant  and  passing  flirtations 
unreproved  and  uninterrupted  by  parents. 
"  I  want  Sallie  to  have  the  small  reception- 
room  to  herself  this  afternoon.  Mr.  X.  is 
coming  to  see  her,  and  I  want  them  let 
alone,"  was  the  remark  of  a  well-known 
Boston  lady  to  the  friend  in  whose  house 
her  daughter  was  staying.  The  friend  in 
question  told  me  this,  telling  me  at  the 
217 


America  and  the  Americans 

same  time  that  "  Sallie  "  was  only  six 
teen. 

1 '  But  who  are  these  people  ?  "  I  am 
asked.  "You  must  have  met  queer  peo 
ple." 

On  the  contrary,  this  lady  and  her  daugh 
ters  are  known  to,  and  received  by,  Bos 
ton's  most  exclusive  social  world. 

It  has  not  been  my  desire  to  look  for,  or 
to  illustrate,  my  chronicle  with  odd  and 
exceptional  instances.  If  these  things  ap 
pear  strange  or  doubtful  to  Americans,  it 
is  simply  that  they  do  not  notice  them. 
They  may  be  seen  by  the  casual  guest  in 
American  homes  in  New  York,  in  Boston, 
Philadelphia,  Washington,  and  Chicago. 
It  is  not  that  they  are  rare,  these  incidents; 
it  is  simply  that  they  are  of  such  constant 
occurrence  that  the  native  does  not  notice 
them. 

In  a  house  in  New  York  in  which  I  had 
the  honor  to  stay  for  a  couple  of  days,  the 
two  children,  a  boy  of  eight  and  a  girl  of 
twelve,  took  me  about  certain  rooms  and 
pointed  out  to  me  the  various  articles,  pict 
ures,  and  other  things  that  "  Pa  has  prom- 
218 


L'Enfant  Terrible 


ised  to  leave  me  when  he  dies !  "     Thus  A  dead 
are  children  early  introduced  to  the  serious 
affairs  of  life  ! 

Ah  !  but  in  spite  of  this  sophistication, 
and  this  laxity  of  rule  in  the  home,  I  am 
told,  there  is  much  less  immorality  here  than 
in  France,  in  Germany,  or  in  England. 

This  statement  reveals  a  curious  super 
ficiality  of  the  American  mind.  Ameri 
cans  always  speak  of  "  immorality "  as  "immoral* 
though  there  were  but  one  kind  of  immor-  ty' 
ality,  namely,  that  related  to  sex.  But  are 
not  disobedience,  treachery,  foul  play,  po 
litical  and  commercial  thieving  and  jock 
eying,  corruption  of  officials  and  legislators, 
bribery,  the  levying  of  blackmail — are  not 
these  also  immoral?  If  the  laxity  and 
carelessness  in  the  home  do  not  result  in 
promiscuous  social  evils,  they  do  lead  to 
disregard  of  constituted  authority — to  an 
easy-going  disregard  of  political  and  com 
mercial  crimes  and  misdemeanors,  un 
equalled  in  any  other  country  in  the  world. 

There  are  scores  of  political  thieves  and 
jobbers  in  New  York,  who,  so  it  is  said,  are 
well  known  to  have  made  comfortable  fort- 
219 


America  and  the  Americans 


unes  out  of  the  city  treasury,  and  they  are 
not  only  not  shunned,  but  they  are  feted 
and  banqueted.  So  far  as  I  can  learn,  a 
man  may  fail  in  business,  and  cheat  his 
creditors  almost  once  a  year,  and  yet  no 
social  disgrace  or  legal  penalty  prevents 
his  playing  the  game  over  and  over  again. 
Said  a  prominent  member  of  the  Cham 
ber  of  Commerce  in  New  York  to  me  : 
Puritanism  "  It  is  a  sad  fact  that  a  man  well  known  to 

andpolitics.     .  ,    r  .  .  r-L-i_ 

be  a  thief,  and  a  giver  and  taker  of  bribes, 
may  be  elected  to  office  in  this  country, 
while  a  man  known  to  be  absolutely  above 
reproach,  so  far  as  financial  and  political 
integrity  is  concerned,  may  be  defeated  by 
any  slander  touching  the  purity  of  his  life, 
even  though  he  be  a  bachelor." 

The  politicians  have  played  without 
ceasing  upon  this  absurd  and  superficial 
moral  code  here.  A  thief  is  a  good  man, 
a  man  who  is  suspected  even  of  licentious 
ness  is  a  bad  man.  Was  there  ever  a  more 
absurd  moral  law  than  that?  Either  both 
are  good  or  both  are  bad.  But  the  Ameri 
can  is  nothing  if  not  superficial  where  ethi 
cal  distinctions  are  concerned. 

220 


L'Enfant  Terrible 


Then,  too,  the  American  is  not  a  sen 
sualist  as  a  rule,  but  he  does  crave  wealth 
and  notoriety  with  a  mastering  passion 

no  one  can  measure,  who  has  not  seen  it  in    The  philos 
ophy  of  a. 

operation  on  the  spot.  Hence  the  sensa 
tional  press  of  the  country  revels  in  high- 
flown  denunciation  of  all  breaches  of,  or 
suspicions  of,  sexual  laxity,  but  passes  over, 
with  slight  attention,  commercial  trickery 
and  political  corruption,  and  even  ap 
plauds  them  at  times,  if  they  prove  suc 
cessful. 

And  the  children  read  these  dreadful 
public  prints.  It  is  one  of  their  inalien 
able  rights.  I  have  seen  scores  of  them 
poring  over  illustrated  and  spicy  accounts 
of  murder,  divorce,  rape,  lynchings,  burn 
ing  of  negroes  for  disgusting  crimes,  and  the 
like.  No  wonder  that  at  the  age  of  twelve 
or  fourteen  they  shock  a  poor,  innocent 
Frenchman  of  forty-five  by  their  familiarity 
with  the  ways  of  the  world. 

"You  can't  fool   him    much,"   said  a 
fond  father  of  one  of  these  juvenile  atroci 
ties  to  me  in  a  railway-carriage.      "'No," 
I  was  tempted  to  reply,  "neither  can  you 
221 


America  and  the  Americans 

further  corrupt  the  corrupted    nor  further 
debauch  the  debauched  imagination,  but 
that  is  hardly  a  matter  to  be  proud  of !  " 
The  other          But  are  there  no  lovely  children   in  the 

side  of  the       ~  ^  .  .  •   i  i 

shield.  States  ?  Are  there  no  young  girls  who 
flirt  not,  no  young  men  who  are  respectful 
to  their  superiors,  no  politicians  who  steal 
not,  no  merchants  of  unquestioned  integ 
rity,  no  mothers  who  are  pure  and  pious? 
Let  me  say  at  once  that  there  are  of  all 
these  many.  Some  of  each  class  I  have 
met.  But  I  am  painting  a  picture  for  one 
who  cannot  see  details — a  picture  which  is 
to  give  only  outlines,  only  the  preponder 
ating  colors — therefore  I  make  no  apologies 
for  what  I  have  written  of  the  American 
child.  Were  all  the  children  made  into 
a  composite  photograph,  that  photograph 
would  be  that  of  le  plus  terrible  de  tons  les 
enfants  terrible s. 

It  is  written  in  the  Talmud  that  "Les 
enfants  doivent  etre  punis  d'une  wain  et 
caresses  des  deux"  That  is  a  wise  say-' 
ing,  taken  as  a  whole,  but  a  fruitless  in 
junction,  if  the  one  hand  which  punishes  is 
forgotten. 

222 


XVII 

"Society" 

FTER  a  visit  to  Boston  and 
Chicago,  and  a  trip  to  Wash 
ington  and  the  South,  on  busi 
ness  affairs,  I  met  my  friend 
again  in  New  York.  He  robbed  himself 
of  part  of  his  own  holiday,  I  fancy,  to  take 
me  first  to  Saratoga  and  then  to  Newport, 
and  from  there  I  went  alone  to  Bar  Har 
bor,  introduced  by  letters  from  him  and 
others. 

Newport  is  like  an  enormous  and  brill-  Newport, 
iant  garden  in  which  are  palatial  homes- 
We  have  summer  -  resorts  in  and  out  of 
France,  all  over  Europe,  in  fact,  but  no  one 
place  where  the  wealth  and  fashion  of  a 
nation  focus  themselves  as  here. 

When  an  American  family  gets  money 
enough  to  afford  an  attack  upon  the  cita 
del    of   Society,  they  begin    at    Newport. 
Here  congregate  what   are  called  "  soci- 
223 


America  and  the  Americans 


The  social 
kettle. 


Le  mondc 
oH  ton 
s1  amuse. 


ety  people,"  from  New  York  especially, 
but  from  Washington,  Philadelphia,  Bos 
ton,  and  Chicago  as  well,  and  for  two 
months  in  the  summer  the  most  highly 
polished  American  social  kettle  boils  and 
bubbles  and  steams  upon  the  Newport 
hob. 

Here  again  one  notices  how  these  people 
love  to  be  close  together.  Some  of  the 
houses  are,  as  I  have  said,  without  exaggera 
tion,  palaces,  but  they  are  not  secluded 
country-seats ;  they  are  all  near  together, 
and  one  may  stroll  from  one  to  the  other 
in  a  few  minutes'  time.  A  club  or  casino 
where  they  play  tennis,  where  they  dance, 
and  dine,  and  lounge  is  a  meeting-place 
where,  at  certain  hours  in  the  day,  and  on 
certain  occasions,  people  assemble  \&  flan- 
ner,  to  flutter,  to  flirt,  and  to  gossip. 

Society  in  America  is  not  the  society  of 
power  or  even  of  prestige,  but  merely  the 
society  of  intrigue  and  amusement.  I  mean, 
by  that,  that  a  man  gains  nothing  of  the 
serious  victories  of  life,  victories  of  com 
merce,  of  politics,  of  literary  dignity,  by 
being  known  as  one  of  the  few  thousands 
224 


"Society" 


or  so  who  give  themselves  to  this  side  of 
life.  Indeed,  both  politically  and  commer 
cially,  I  am  not  sure  that  he  would  not  lose 
by  being  conspicuous  in  this  society. 

The  great  game  of  life  used  to  be,  and  is 
still,  to  some  extent,  played  in  the  draw 
ing-rooms  in  Paris,  London,  Berlin,  Rome, 
and  St.  Petersburg.  You  meet  there  the 
diplomats,  the  politicians,  the  ecclesiastics, 
the  distinguished  or  promising  men  of  let 
ters  or  of  science,  the  conspicuous  jour 
nalists  and  soldiers  and  sailors,  the  well- 
known  travellers  and  explorers,  and  so  on. 
One  house  represents  one  shade  of  politi 
cal  or  ecclesiastical  thought  and  action, 
and  another  another,  and  so  on.  Society 
is  a  microcosm  of  the  world.  Well  intro 
duced  and  well  mannered,  one  may  see  in 
London,  in  a  fortnight,  the  men  and  wom 
en  who  are  making  the  wheels  of  their  part 
of  the  world  go  round.  At  one  house  you 
meet  one  set,  at  one  club  another  set,  and 
so  you  may  go  the  rounds. 

Society   there   drags    the  world    for  its  Society's 
biggest  fishes,  and  you  may  see  the  politi-  dras'net' 
cal  dolphin,  or  the  exploring  whale,  or  the 
225 


America  and  the  Americans 


literary  whitebait,  all  in  white  ties  and  black 
coats,  in  a  beautiful,  big,  transparent,  bowl 
which  is  called  society. 

It  is  worth  while  to  be  a  part  of  this  so 
cial  life,  and  it  becomes  almost  the  most 
interesting  portion  of  a  stranger's  visit  to  a 
strange  land.  I  had  a  week  of  Newport, 
and  a  fast  week,  too.  I  met  at  least  two 
hundred  and  more  different  men  and  wom 
en  at  dinners,  dances,  picnics,  and  on 
board  a  yacht  or  two,  and  I  stayed  part  of 
my  time  in  one,  and  part  of  my  time  in 
another,  house.  The  kindness,  the  hospital 
ity,  the  comfort,  were  lavish.  No  pleasanter 
people  in  the  world  to  enjoy  a  week  with,  no 
kindlier  hosts  or  more  attentive  hostesses. 
Your  way  is  made  smooth  with  gold.  They 
even  have  to  a  certain  extent  good  ser 
vants,  and,  as  is  true  of  this  class  of  Ameri 
cans  in  all  the  large  cities,  the  best  din 
ners  in  the  world. 

The  absent  But  though  I  have  legs  and  arms  and  a 
belly,  I  have  also  a  head.  Where  were  the 
statesmen,  the  soldiers,  the  men  of  letters, 
the  men  who  are  making  America  move,  so 
to  speak  ?  One  politician  I  met,  a  charm- 

226 


ones 


"Society" 


ing  fellow,  wealthy  and  wise,  a  man  who 
takes  his  part  in  New  York  in  State  and 
city  affairs,  but  he  was  the  only  one.  The 
great  majority  of  the  men  were  idlers — very 
amiable  ones,  to  be  sure — but  elections  are 
won  or  lost,  "strikes"  are  suppressed, 
bridges  and  railroads  are  built,  treaties 
with  other  nations  are  made,  new  countries 
are  discovered  and  settled,  Indian  riots  and 
negro  revolts  are  subdued,  books  are  writ 
ten,  stocks  are  sent  up  or  down,  laws  are 
made,  not  only  without  aid  from  them,  but 
even  without  their  knowledge. 

They  tell  good  stories,  some  of  them  ;  society  AM 
they  play  games;  they  dance,  dine,  and 
drink ;  many  of  them  are  mere  boys,  but 
they  are,  so  to  speak,  what  the  frothed 
cream  on  a  pudding  is  to  the  cow  that 
gives  the  milk,  and  Newport  might  be  sub 
merged  in  the  sea,  and  the  brains  and 
daring  and  progressive  energy  of  America 
would  not  be  disturbed  in  the  very  least — 
a  certain  amount  of  money  would  be  redis 
tributed  et  voila  tout ! 

I  say  this  not  harshly,    but  merely  to 
mark  a  difference.     For  this  same  thing 
227 


America  and  the  Americans 

could  not  be  said  of  London,  or  Paris,  or 

Vienna.     The  best  society  of  Europe  is  suc- 

Le  monde      cess  enjoying  an  idle  hour  or  so ;  the  best 

ou  Von  .  i  .       .  ji  . 

s'enMuie.  society  here  is  idleness  enjoying  its  suc 
cess.  One  may  go  into  society  in  Europe 
with  a  fair  expectation  of  being  stimulated, 
no  matter  what  your  own  particular  inter 
ests  are  ;  you  go  into  society  here  and  you 
are  fortunate  if,  for  any  length  of  time, 
you  are  so  much  as  diverted.  In  Europe 
they  have  had  money  so  long  that  they  are 
no  longer  amused  by  what  mere  money  can 
do  ;  here,  apparently,  society  is  still  content 
with  the  juggling  and  transformations,  with 
the  luxury  and  the  surprises,  that  gold  can 
produce. 

You  do  not  meet  the  politicians,  but 
the  contributors  to  the  purchase  of  them ; 
you  do  not  meet  the  travellers,  journalists, 
statesmen,  colonizers,  and  warriors,  but 
merely  those  who  talk  about  them.  To 
that  extent,  at  least,  society,  so-called,  is  a 
distinct  disappointment.  You  hear  much 
about  this  young  woman's  family  wishing 
to  marry  her  to  that  young  man  whose 
fortune  still  has  the  little  card-board  tags  of 
228 


"Society" 


ready-made  clothes  and  carpets  upon  it. 
You  hear  of  that  married  woman's  con 
tinued  flirtation  with  this  man,  of  this, 
that,  and  the  other  menage  a  trois ;  you 
see,  after  you  hear  the  stories,  and  know 
the  names,  these  small  insect-intrigues  go 
ing  on  under  your  nose.  You  say  this  is  no 
microcosm  of  this  teeming,  virile,  turbulent 
American  life.  Surely  not ;  it  is  merely  the 
macrocosm  of  wealthy  frivolity. 

Society,  to  be  permanently  interesting, 
must  be  made  up  of  idle  professionals,  not 
of  professional  idlers.  Pray,  bear  in  mind 
that  Newport  is  not  what  I  have  dubbed 
American  society ;  this  is  what  the  Ameri 
cans  themselves  say  is  New  York  society's 
best  dish,  garnished  with  a  little  cold  Bos- 
ton  celery,  and  a  fringe  of  Philadelphia  and 
Baltimore  parsley. 

In  this  connection,  clearness  demands 
that  one  should  note  the  American  use  of 
the  word  ' «  society. ' '  According  to  the 
newspapers,  practically  every  woman  who 
attends  a  spelling-bee  or  who  goes  to  the 
country  for  a  short  holiday  in  the  summer 
is  a  "  society  leader."  All  the  young  men 
229 


America  and  the  Americans 


"  Club 
man.'" 


*'  Society.* 


who  die  in  this  country  are  "  club-men," 
or  "great  club-men,"  as  the  case  may  be. 
For  a  long  time  this  puzzled  me,  till  I  dis 
covered  that  the  newspapers  intended  to 
flatter,  and  probably,  also,  the  relicts  of  the 
aforesaid  deceased  young  men  were  actually 
flattered,  by  this  term,  "club-man."  In 
Europe,  of  course,  every  man  of  any  posi 
tion  has  his  club  as  much  as  he  has  his 
watch  or  his  collar ;  and  it  would  be  as  ab 
surd  to  speak  of  a  Paris  dandy  or  of  a  Lon 
don  swell  as  a  "  club-man,"  as  to  speak  of 
him  as  a  man  of  trousers,  or  clean  shirts,  or 
polished  boots. 

Society,  in  Europe,  has  a  certain  re 
stricted  meaning  which  enables  one  to  pict 
ure  to  himself  what  "  in  society  "  means. 
It  is  not  necessarily  a  brilliant  distinction, 
but  it  is,  at  least,  a  sufficiently  intelligi 
ble  definition.  But  here  "society  leader" 
and  "club-man"  may  mean  something  or 
nothing,  as  the  case  may  be.  Here  again 
democracy  exaggerates  the  very  sentiments 
and  positions  it  is  supposed  to  ignore. 

Every  woman  with  two  changes  of  head 
gear  is  a  "  society  woman,"  and  every  man 
230 


"  Society" 


with  a  top-hat  and  two  pairs  of  trousers  is 
a  "club -man."  One  hears,  too,  more 
talk  about  "old  families"  here  than  any 
where  else ;  why  it  is  I  know  not,  unless  it 
be  because  they  secretly  feel  that  they  are 
all  so  new. 

An  old  family  means  simply  a  family  «oid 
whose  members  have  been,  in  one  capacity 
or  another,  noteworthy  and  valuable  citi 
zens  for  a  century  or  two ;  it  means  that, 
or  merely  that  we  are  all  equidistant  from 
Adam,  or,  at  various  stages  of  develop 
ment,  from  some  anthropoid  ape.  In  short 
it  has  a  perfectly  definite  meaning,  or  it 
has  none. 

The  foreigner  is  at  first  bewildered  by 
this  "  society  woman,"  "club-man,"  "old- 
family  ' '  talk,  and  then  amused  by  it.  There 
are  clubs,  and  very  good  clubs,  here  ;  there 
is  society,  and  very  luxurious  and  bright 
society ;  and  there  are  some  noteworthy 
citizens  whose  grandfathers  were  not 
hanged  ;  but  there  are  seventy-five  million 
people  here  also,  and  some  few  of  them  do 
not  come  under  any  of  these  three  heads. 

When  I  went  to  Saratoga,  and  to  Bar 
231 


America  and  the  Americans 

Harbor,  I  kept  hearing  everywhere  of  "  so 
ciety  women,"  and  " club-men,"  and  "  old 
families,"  but  of  society  in  the  restricted 
and  brilliant  sense  to  which  we  confine 
the  word  I  saw  little  outside  of  New  York, 
Newport,  and  Washington. 

Saratoga.  Saratoga  is  famous  for  its  springs  of 
mineral  water,  and  for  a  certain  kind  of 
hotel-life  during  the  summer,  such  as  I 
have  seen  nowhere  else  in  the  world. 
Huge  wooden  structures,  containing  hun 
dreds  of  rooms,  are  opened  during  eight 
or  ten  weeks  in  the  summer,  and  there 
flock  thither,  to  live  like  bees  in  a  hive, 
some  thousands  of  people  with  a  certain 
amount  of  money  to  spend.  They  all  eat 
together,  dance  together  in  the  hotel  par 
lors  in  the  evening,  lounge  together  on 
the  hotel  piazzas  during  the  day,  walk  to 
and  from  the  springs  together,  and  if  one 
could  see  through  the  partitions  between 
the  rooms  as  well  as  one  can  hear  through 
them,  the  absolute  absence  of  all  personal 
privacy  would  be  attained  at  last,  and  the 
crowd-loving  American  might  look  for 
ward  to  life  hereafter  in  one  of  these 
232 


"Society" 


Saratoga  hotels.  It  is  only,  I  suppose,  a 
question  of  time  when  all  partitions  will 
be  removed,  and  the  acme  of  human  pro 
miscuity  will  be  reached  when  rival  hotel- 
keepers  shall  advertise  "  no  partitions  !  " 

My  stay  in  Saratoga  was  short.  My 
friend  drove  me  about  one  day,  spent  the 
night,  and  then  was  off  to  New  York.  I 
stayed  out  another  day  and  night,  and 
followed  him  to  the  comparative  loneli 
ness  and  privacy  of  the  crowded  city 
streets.  If  Daudet  or  an  equally  caustic 
wit  had  been  with  me  here,  no  doubt  he 
would  have  said  that  Saratoga  explained  to 
him  the  Destruction  of  Jerusalem,  for  the 
Jews  are  here  in  swarms. 

The  negro  servants  were  to  me  the  most  African 
interesting  feature  of  the  exhibit.  To  see 
one  of  these  negro  waiters  in  a  white 
apron,  a  tin  tray,  covered  with  small 
bird-seed  dishes,  poised  upon  the  upraised 
palm  of  his  right  hand,  steering  his  way 
through  the  maze  of  chairs,  tables,  and 
other  waiters  down  the  long  dining-room, 
was  to  see  a  rare  sight.  But  to  see  the  two 
or  three  upper-servants  snapping  their  fin- 

233 


America  and  the  Americans 

gers  or  moving  about  pompously,  like 
black  kings  in  an  animated  wax  -  work 
show,  was  to  see  the  vanity  of  the  peacock 
surpassed,  as  is  the  timidity  of  the  field- 
mouse  by  the  glories  of  Solomon.  I 
wonder  that  the  phrase  "  the  glory  of  a 
negro  head-waiter  "  has  not  become  a  cur 
rent  phrase  in  the  American  vocabulary. 

These  black  servants,  and  the  dress  and 
ornamentation  of  the  women,  made  one 
feel  as  though  one  were  wandering  about 
in  a  mammoth  aviary,  peopled  by  birds 
of  paradise  attended  by  Africans.  Women 
walk  about  the  streets  in  the  evening  in 
evening  dress  and  glittering  with  dia 
monds,  and  at  the  dances  in  the  evening 
unintroduced  strangers  ask  ladies  to  dance 
with  them.  No  doubt,  morally,  everything 
is  right  enough  ;  but  this  hap-hazard  social 
life,  even  for  a  few  weeks,  must  result  in 
producing  a  dissipated  habit  of  mind  and 
a  certain  easy  looseness  of  manners,  which 
can  hardly  be  good  for  either  matrons  or 
maids. 

The  One  often  hears  it  said  in  America  that 

kMband.      American  husbands  are  the  best  husbands 

234 


"Society" 


in  the  world,  and  from  the  stand -point  of 
women  this  is  quite  true.  It  is  a  question, 
however,  that  only  another  century  of 
American  social  and  domestic  history  can 
answer  whether  this  feminine  social  and 
domestic  supremacy  produces  the  happiest 
results.  No  one  will  deny  that  now,  in 
America,  the  comfort  of  the  man  is  subor 
dinated  to  that  of  the  woman. 

Unlike  most  European  countries,  the 
men  outnumber  the  women  by  something 
over  a  million  and  a  half.  This  fact  alone 
gives  women  a  greater  value  here  than 
elsewhere ;  and  when  one  is  told  that  there 
are  over  two  million  widows,  or  one  widow 
to  every  fifteen  of  the  female  population, 
this  of  itself  possibly  accounts  for  a  certain 
topsy-turviness  of  the  conjugal  relation. 

What  one  would  expect  from  this  greater 
freedom  and  prominence  of  women  holds 
good,  for  the  divorces  number  seven  pro 
cured  by  women  to  five  procured  by  men. 
That  is  to  say,  of  the  total  male  population, 
0.15  per  cent,  were  divorced;  of  the  total 
female  population,  0.24  per  cent,  were  di 
vorced.  Now,  if  it  be  true,  as  the  Ameri- 

235 


America  and  the  Americans 

can  women  themselves  affirm,  that  the 
American  husband  is  the  best  husband  in 
the  world,  then  the  above  divorce  statistics 
certainly  go  to  prove  that  there  is  some 
thing  wrong  with  the  domestic  behavior  of 
the  American  wife. 

Domestic  I  offer  no  comment  whatever  as  to  that, 
because  I  am,  I  know  very  well,  prejudiced 
beyond  possibility  of  fairness  in  my  belief 
that  the  man  should  be  master  in  his  house, 
and  that  if  he  is  not  so  considered,  it  is 
equally  bad  for  the  wife,  the  children,  and 
the  man  himself. 

This  hydra-headed  monarchy  that  the 
Americans  are  pleased  to  call  a  democracy 
has  not  succeeded  so  well  thus  far  that  it  is 
a  wise  move  to  make  family  rule  hydra- 
headed  as  well — children,  wife,  and  ser 
vants — all  with  an  equal  voice  in  the  man 
agement,  and  each  with  a  veto  over  his  per 
sonal  "wills"  and  "wonts." 

My  own  ecclesiastical  leanings  make  it 
difficult  for  me  to  approve  of  divorce,  and 
yet  I  hope  that  I  am  fair  enough  to  admit 
that  in  this  country,  where  the  ties  of  au 
thority,  either  ecclesiastical  or  social,  are  so 
236 


"Society" 


newly  knotted,  it  is  not  easy  to  damn  any 
thing  off-hand.  When,  as  has  been  the 
case,  a  high  dignitary  of  the  church  pro 
cures  a  divorce  for  his  daughter,  and  men 
and  women  of  undoubted  decency  of  life 
procure  divorces,  one  must  know  more 
than  do  I  of  such  matters,  to  speak  ex 
cathedra  on  the  subject. 

One  distinguished  and  affable  judge,  Ae*/*ffjf 
whom  I  met  at  dinner,  told  me  that  the  pianation. 
American  was  naturally  a  domestic  animal, 
and  pointed  to  the  large  percentage  of  mar 
ried  people  to  substantiate  his  assertion, 
and  followed  this  by  saying  that  a  large 
percentage  of  the  divorces,  he  believed, 
resulted  in  a  more  stable  and  peaceful 
domestic  life  thereafter.  He  believed  in 
permitting  no  chicanery  in  the  divorce 
courts,  but  in  permitting  divorce  for  adul 
tery,  for  wilful  desertion,  and  certain  other 
offences. 


237 


XVIII 

Summer  Resorts 

[N  most  civilized  countries,  it  has 
been  well  said,    "Les  homines 
font  les  lois,  les  femmes  font  les 
mccurs. ' '     After  a  round  of  New 
port,  Saratoga,  and  Bar  Harbor,  one  begins 
to  question  the  truth  of  this  epigram  as  ap- 
Anzn-         plied  to  American  laws  and  manners.     If 

applicable  .  .  ,  . 

epigram.  my  observations  are  ot  any  worth,  the 
above  statement  is  not  altogether  true  here, 
where  the  women  make  the  laws,  and  the 
men  put  up  with  the  manners  of  the  women. 

Laws  and  manners,  both,  are  made  at 
Bar  Harbor,  at  any  rate,  for  youngish  men 
by  young  girls. 

Picture  to  yourself  a  rocky  island  off  the 
coast  of  Northeastern  America;  build  for 
yourself  upon  it  innumerable  chateaux, 
small  and  large,  of  fantastic  architecture, 
pour  down  sunshine  upon  it,  and  people  it 
with  hundreds  of  young  people  in  bright- 
238 


Slimmer  Resorts 


colored  summer  costumes,  and  permit  these 
vivacious  youths  to  take  all  sorts  of  liber 
ties  with  liberty,  et  voild  Bar  Harbor. 

The  island  was  at  first  an  outing-place  for 
New  Englanders;  it  became  famous  for  its 
unconventional  "good  times,"  as  they  say 
here,  and  now  it  swarms  with  people  from 
all  parts  of  the  States.  Land  sells  for  fabu 
lous  sums,  the  more  fashionable  world  pours 
in,  and  dinners,  and  dances,  luncheons, 
and  picnics  fill  up  the  days  and  nights 
much  as  at  Newport.  The  class  of  people 
here  is  distinctly  different  from  that  at  Sara 
toga,  but  the  ever-present  American  mix 
ing  process  goes  on  here,  only  in  a  different 
guise — here  it  is  al  fresco.  Young  men  informai- 

.-  ,  .  ity of 'inter* 

and  women  are  off  together  alone  in  canoes   course. 
and  sail-boats  on  the  water,  and  in  buck- 
boards  and « '  buggies ' '  on  the  land.    Women 
organize  entertainments,  invite  the  guests, 
and  generally  reign  supreme. 

One  of  the  strangest  political  phenomena 
to  me  is  the  ceaseless  agitation  for  women's 
rights  here.  Rights !  Mon  Dieu !  they 
have  rights,  privileges,  autocracy  now  in  this 
country  ;  pray,  what  more  can  they  want? 

239 


America  and  the  Americans 

I  go  to  a  luncheon,  and  thereafter  I  am 
escorted  to  a  canoe  by  a  maiden  of  twenty  - 
odd  summers,  who  keeps  me  out  on  the 
water  with  her  till  eight  o'clock,  laughs 
merrily  when,  in  trepidation,  I  wonder 
what  excuses  I  am  to  make  to  my  dinner- 
hostess  that  evening.  "  Oh,  tell  her  you 
were  with  me  !  " 

I  dine  at  the  chateau  of  a  Chicago  lady, 
whose  husband  is  not  in  evidence.  He  is 
deplorably  vulgar,  they  tell  me  ;  but  the 
wife  is  an  energetic  leader  socially,  and  in 
Claudius?  other  ways — Ubi  Claudius  ibi  Claudia  is 
the  usual  form,  is  it  not  ?  But  here  ubi 
Claudia  and  Claudius  nowhere,  seems  to  be 
the  rule.  In  Europe  the  wife  takes  the  so 
cial  position  of  her  husband,  but  here,  God 
bless  you  !  the  husband  merely  fits  in  to  the 
social  exigencies  of  his  wife  as  best  he  can. 

I  am  having,  as  these  young  Americans 
say,  "a.  simply  lovely  time,"  but,  to  be 
honest  with  you,  I  do  not  half  like  this  new 
basis  of  social  life.  I  do  not  see  that  it 
leads  to  anything  strong,  and  true,  and 
vigorous  in  the  national  life. 

Among  the  lower  animals  the  lion  has 

240 


Summer  Resorts 


the  mane,  and  the  lioness  is  less  noticeable 
than  he;  the  male  pheasant  carries  the 
gorgeous  plumage,  and  his  mate  looks  som 
bre  beside  him ;  the  male  Indian,  both  in  A  newdis 
the  East  and  West,  wears  the  jewels  and 
the  gorgeous  robes  and  blankets;  but  in 
this  last  type  of  civilization  the  females 
strut  and  preen  themselves  in  iridescent 
colors  and  in  costly  finery,  and  the  male 
limps  sedately  behind  her.  The  women 
drive,  the  women  paddle  and  row  and 
sail,  the  women  invite  you,  the  women 
entertain  you.  These  women  are  never 
crossed,  never  made  to  obey,  except  when 
they  have  daughters  of  eighteen  and  over, 
and  then  these  overwise  young  misses 
make  a  league  with  the  down-trodden  fa 
ther,  and  the  mother  goes  to  the  wall. 

I  hope  that  I  am  not  exaggerating.     I 
speak  only  of  what  I  see  with  my  own  eyes. 
I  give  only  the  preponderating  colors   of 
the  scene.     There  are  exceptions.     Pray, 
think  not  that  I  am  such  a  prig  as  to  give 
these  fleeting  glances  as  profound  observa 
tions,  as  data  not  to  be  denied  or  modified, 
n  spite  of  all  that  I  write,  it  is  only  here, 
241 


America  and  the  Americans 


not  in  prudish  England,  not  in  lethargic 
Germany,  not  in  decorous  and  sleepy  Hol 
land,  that  I  learned  the  falsity  of  my  coun 
tryman's  cynical  dictum  :  "  //  est  de  bons 
manages  ;  il  n'  en  est  pas  de  delicieux" 

I  have  seen  in  various  parts  of  the  world 

married  people  who  respected  one  another, 

married  people  who  loved  one  another,  but 

A  big  word   here  I  have  met  at  least  a  dozen  married 

of  praise.  •>         r  ^• 

people  of  some  years  standing  who  actually 
enjoy  one  another.  After  all  that  I  have 
said  which  would  seem  to  contradict  this, 
I  can  only  explain  these  manages  delicieux 
by  referring  them  to  the  large  category  of 
bewildering  surprises  which  this  land  sup 
plies  to  the  studious  spectator. 

It  ought  to  be  the  case,  that  this  untram 
melled  freedom  of  married  and  unmarried 
women  should  produce  a  good  fellowship 
not  to  be  found  in  countries  where  women 
are  more  carefully  guarded  ;  and  where  the 
women  are  of  the  best  type  here,  this  turns 
out  to  be  the  case.  For  most  women  the 
system  is  bad,  but  for  a  picked  few  it  re 
sults  in  the  happiest  domestic  establish 
ments  in  the  world. 

242 


Summer  Resorts 


Nothing  is  more  productive  of  slavery 
than  the  gift  of  liberty.  To  give  a  man  or 
woman  liberty  that  he  or  she  has  not 
earned  is  merely  to  put  him  or  her  in 
worse  bondage  than  before.  One  sees  this 
here  in  the  case  of  the  negroes,  in  the  case  Fatal 
of  the  Irish  politicians,  in  the  case  of  the  ltbt 
socialistic  and  anarchistic  immigrants,  who, 
severally  and  together,  take  the  most  im 
pertinent  liberties  with  liberty.  I  beg 
pardon  in  advance,  but  I  permit  myself  to 
say  that  this  applies  as  well  to  many  of 
the  women,  and  to  almost  all  the  children. 

One  cannot  conceive  of  an  English  Bar 
Harbor,  of  a  French  Saratoga,  of  an  Aus 
trian  Manhattan  Beach.  People  are  not 
deemed  fit  for  such  freedom  in  those  coun 
tries  ;  and  taking  the  results  all  together, 
massing  them,  so  to  phrase  it,  and  leav 
ing  out  the  delicious  exceptions,  I  doubt 
whether  the  Americans  are  worthy  of  such 
freedom.  I  saw  at  Saratoga  and  at  Bar 
Harbor  various  things  that  led  me  to  be 
lieve  that  many  men  and  women  overlook 
the  difference  between  liberty  and  liberties. 
A  slave  to  whom  a  crown  is  given,  all  too 

243 


America  and  the  Americans 

often  becomes  a  tyrant.  Let  the  baby  do 
as  it  pleases  for  a  week,  and  see  the  natural 
instincts  of  humanity  to  wear  the  crown 
and  wield  the  sceptre  of  an  autocrat,  crop 
out. 

This  is  the  land  of  spoiled  children,  and 
had  I  not  come  to  know  well  here  some 
such  splendid  types  of  what  a  woman 
should  be,  I  should  add,  of  spoiled  women, 
as  well.  Perhaps  it  is  true  that  the  best 
types  of  men  and  women  are  more  quick 
ly  developed  and  improved  by  those  rarest 
gifts  —  wealth,  power,  liberty.  These 
A  danger  things  are  good  for  the  best,  but  they  are 
certainly  bad  for  the  average  run  of  people, 
and  an  impartial  view  of  this  civilization 
proves  the  truth  of  this.  Certainly,  had 
I  a  young  wife  and  daughters,  I  should 
not  turn  them  out  for  the  summer  at  Sa 
ratoga  or  Bar  Harbor — unless  I  were  an 
American  husband,  in  which  case  I  should 
do  as  I  was  bid  and  pay  the  bills  ! 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  from  this  social 
and  domestic    prominence  of   the   women 
here,  that  the  men  are  a  supine  lot.     They 
are  subordinate  to  their  women,  but  not 
244 


Slimmer  Resorts 


easily  bullied  by  other  men.  They  are 
not  effeminate ;  it  is  simply  the  habit  of 
the  country.  As  in  the  far  West,  the  In 
dian  warrior  of  undoubted  bravery,  whose 
tepee  is  hung  with  scalps,  may  be  beaten 
by  his  favorite  squaw  without  loss  of  dig 
nity  or  impeachment  of  his  courage  ;  so 
here,  among  the  more  civilized  pale-faces, 
the  men  make  no  point  of  ruling  in  matters 
domestic. 

Whoever  has  seen  Hyde  Park  of  a  Sun 
day  morning  after  church,  or  watched  the 
crowds  on  their  way  to  the  races  in  Paris 
of  a  Sunday  afternoon,  knows  without  the 
telling  that  the  men  are  as  much  aux  petits  Dress  of  the 
soins  about  their  toilet  as  the  women.  It 
is  not  so  here.  In  New  York,  at  Newport, 
in  Washington,  one  meets  many  men  who 
are  always  carefully  groomed.  But  the 
average  male  American  is  almost  sloven 
ly  in  his  dress,  and  the  farther  West  you 
go  the  more  this  is  apparent.  A  man,  in 
many  parts  of  the  country,  who  is  punc 
tilious  in  his  dress  is  looked  at  rather 
askance  as  one  who  devotes  too  much  time 
and  thought  to  the  rather  feminine  details 

245 


America  and  the  Americans 

of  existence.  This  is  carried  to  such  an 
extent  that  many  gentlemen  even  do  not 
look  fresh  and  neat. 

In  some  parts  of  the  country  men  pan 
der  to  this  for  political  effect,  and  wear 
shabby  clothes,  hats,  and  boots,  and  no 
neck-cloth  —  sometimes  no  collar  —  in  the 
belief  that  this  slovenliness  endears  them 
to  the  vote-holding  masses.  Many  mem 
bers  of  Congress  have  no  evening  clothes, 
and  deem  it  foppery  to  wear  such.  One 
federal  Senator  was  said  never  to  wear 
Politics  and  socks  ;  another  always  wore  a  paper  collar, 
fastened  at  the  throat  by  a  diamond  button, 
but  no  neck-cloth ;  and  I  could  cite  many 
more  examples  of  similar  savagery.  Much 
of  that,  of  course,  is  hypocrisy  pur  et  simple, 
mere  ochlocraticism. 

In  the  case  of  the  many  carelessly  dressed 
men  in  both  the  East  and  West,  the  matter 
is  explained  by  the  very  high  price  of 
clothes  when  made  by  a  tailor,  and  not 
bought  ready-made,  and  to  the  fact  that 
the  servants  are  not  trained  here  to  look 
after  one's  wardrobe.  In  theory,  this 
sounds  all  very  democratic,  to  be  one's 
246 


Summer  Resorts 


own  valet,  to  look  after  one's  own  clothes 
and  boots.  I  stayed  in  one  house  in 
Chicago,  by  the  way,  where  a  small  box 
was  pointed  out  to  me  as  containing  black 
ing  and  brushes,  and  with  my  own  right 
hand,  did  I  burnish  up  my  boots — but  as 
a  matter  of  fact  it  is  neither  democratic 
nor  economical.  Subdivision  and  syste- 
matization  of  labor  is  the  only  true  democ 
ratic,  the  only  true  economic,  way. 

At  a  club  in  Chicago,  chatting  of  Ameri 
can  affairs  with  an  entertaining  American, 
I  broached  the  subject  of  prices.  Like  most 
Americans  he  launched  out  into  a  descrip 
tion  of  his  own  affairs.  The  suit  of  clothes 
he  had  on  cost,  he  said,  two  hundred  and 
seventy  -  five  francs.  He  calculated  that 
he  spent  about  nineteen  hundred  francs  a 
year  just  for  coats,  trousers,  and  waistcoats. 
His  tailor,  he  said,  would  not  make  him  an  A  Chicago 
evening  suit  for  less  than  four  hundred  and 
fifty  francs. 

It  was   in    the   morning   that  we  were 

chatting,  and  I  was  wearing  a  suit  that  I 

had  had  three   years,  and  which  cost  me 

originally    eighty-five    francs.       But    then 

247 


America  and  the  Americans 

good  Francois  keeps  my  clothes  and  boots 
as  I  keep  my  guns.  Things  for  the  differ 
ent  seasons  are  put  away,  and  brought  out 
again,  and  though  I  have  probably  five 
suits  of  clothes  to  that  young  gentleman's 
one,  my  clothes  and  Francois's  wages  added 
do  not  cost  me  per  annum  anything  like 
the  amount  he  spends  for  his. 

For  a  young  man  to  have  a  man-servant 
in  this  country  is  to  be  marked  out  as  pe 
culiarly  foppish,  as  rather  silly,  as  some 
what  effeminate.  But  fancy  the  lost  time, 
the  lost  energy,  the  worry  of  a  really  busy 
man  who  should  attempt  to  be  his  own 
bootblack,  to  fold  and  brush  and  look  after 
his  own  clothes,  and  calculate  how  much 
money  he  must  waste  through  the  lack  of 
care  bestowed  on  these  things. 

Personally  I  can  see  nothing  derogatory 
personal       to  one's  character  in  being  another  man's 
servant,  if  the  other  man  is  a  good  fellow. 
I  supposed   that  in  a  democracy,  at  any 
rate,  service  was  the  only  genuine  badge 
of  nobility.     I  should  have  enjoyed  being 
valet   to  Alexander    the  Great,   or   Louis 
Quatorze,   or   groom    of  the  chambers  to 
248 


St-rvice. 


Summer  Resorts 


Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  or  secretary  to 
Talleyrand  or  Moliere.     What  more  inter 
esting  task  than  to  serve  a  man  who  is   Effete  pku- 
playing  a  worthy  part  in  the  affairs  of  life?  osopky' 
If  one  cannot  do  great  things  one's  self, 
what  can  be  nearer  to  it  than  to  help  take 
care  of  the  man  who  can  ? 

It  is  this  absurd  and  wholly  undemo 
cratic  feeling  about  service  in  America 
which  makes  all  the  details  of  domestic 
and  social,  and  even  commercial  and  polit 
ical  life,  so  rough  and  hard  and  tiresome. 
It  is  one  thing  to  be  a  slave,  quite  another 
to  be  a  servant.  In  every  civilized  State 
the  servants  of  God  are  given  precedence, 
and,  pray,  who  should  come  next  in  a  Chris 
tian  democracy,  if  not  the  servants  of  man, 
and  then  the  servants  of  men  ? 

The  savage  kills  his  own  game,  makes 
his  own  blanket,  and  bows,  and  arrows, 
and  tent,  each  for  himself.  The  civilized 
man  has  found  it  more  simple  to  apportion 
to  each  a  task,  and  thus  leave  each  one  free  economy- 
to  devote  his  whole  time  to  the  doing  of  one 
thing  well.  In  this  way  life  is  made  more 
simple,  less  complex,  and,  in  the  true  sense, 
249 


America  and  the  Americans 

more  democratic.  Who  would  counsel  re 
verting  to  the  system  of  each  man  his  own 
cook,  his  own  policeman,  his  own  builder, 
his  own  tailor,  his  own  shoemaker  ? 

' '  There  is  no  office  in  this  needful  world 
But  dignifies  the  doer,  if  done  well," 

writes  Fortunatus  the  Pessimist. 

These  Americans  handicap  themselves 
heavily  by  this  semi -savage  idea  of  theirs 
about  service.  Given  six  men,  one  who 
kills,  one  who  cooks,  one  who  builds,  one 
who  farms,  one  who  makes  clothes,  one  who 
makes  shoes;  and  on  the  other  hand  six 
communities  of  one  man  each,  where  each 
one  attempts  to  do  all  these  duties  himself, 
and  who  doubts  which  of  these  seven  com 
munities  will  be  most  prosperous  and  most 
powerful  at  the  end  of  a  year  ? 

A  statesman  who  looks  upon  statecraft 
The  f          as  a  serious  business,    and  we  Frenchmen 
sidecfit.      know  whether  it  is  a  serious  business  or 
not,  has  no  time  to  chop  up  his  own  fire 
wood,  and  to  sew  buttons  on  his  own  shirt, 
and  to  black  his  own  boots.     In  many 
matters  American  men  have  kept  pace  with 

250 


Summer  Resorts 


the  marvellous  material  progress  of  their 
own  country,  but  in  this  matter  of  the  sys- 
tematization  of  the  minor  details  of  life 
they  are  leagues  behind  us,  leagues  behind 
Germany  and  England — formidable  com 
mercial  competitors  of  theirs — leagues  be 
hind  Japan,-  even. 

They  are  far  too  self-confident  to  take  any 
warning  now.  They  deem  these,  matters 
that  will  right  themselves,  or  problems  that 
they  will  solve  by  machinery.  But  India, 
Russia,  and  South  America  grow  wheat 
now,  and  borrow  the  best  American  ma 
chines  for  their  labor  ! 

Democracies  have  usually  failed  because    Weakness 

.      ,     ,  .  of  detnocra- 

they  would  not  give  their  best  men  a  chance,  des. 
because  they  would  not  put  confidence  in 
natural  leaders.  Nothing  the  people  dis 
trust  so  much  as  the  people.  America 
has  this  lesson  to  learn.  Another  hundred 
years  and  they  will  be  put  to  it  here,  despite 
their  great  natural  advantages,  to  keep  their 
place  among  the  great  nations.  Only 
men,  strong  men,  trained  men,  trusted  men, 
can  fight  their  battle  for  them.  Machines 
will  not  do  it.  Luck  will  not  do  it.  Only 
251 


America  and  the  Americans 

trained  men  served  by  trained  servants  will 
do  it. 

But  allons  done  !  I  am  preaching,  nous 
verrons  ce  que  nous  verrons  !  But  I  like  these 
brave  people  too  much  not  to  be  serious  in 
my  discussion  of  their  affairs  from  time  to 
time.  I  fear  that  perhaps  Bar  Harbor  and 
Saratoga  and  Newport  made  me  feel  a  lit 
tle  school  -  mastery  toward  them,  made  me 
think  they  were  not  studious  enough.  I 
may  be  mistaken.  There  may  be  other 
A  possi-  surprises  in  store  for  me.  Perhaps  some 

bility.  '       .  ,  L    . 

American  even  now  has  an  invention  up 
his  sleeve  by  means  of  which  a  man  may 
carry  a  machine  in  his  watch-case  which 
will  valet  him  and  secretary  him,  and  board 
and  lodge  him,  all  by  touching  a  spring. 


252 


XIX 
Impressions  of  Chicago 

HAD  about  finished  putting 
my  journal  in  order  to  send  it 
to  my  friend  in  New  York, 
when  I  received,  forwarded  by 
him  to  my  address,  an  extraordinary  letter 
from  Chicago. 

The  letter  ran  about  as  follows:  "My 
dear  Monsieur  X.  :  You  will  remember  that  A 
we  met  in  Chicago.  My  friend  Y. ,  of  New 
York,  tells  me  that  you  have  consented  to 
put  some  of  your  notes,  taken  while  in 
America,  in  his  hands  for  printing.  If 
you  say  anything  about  the  Windy  City, 
you  might  mention  my  name,  as  you  fel 
lows  say,  just  en  passant!"  Then  there 
were  several  pages  of  personal  flattery,  and 
an  offer  to  send  me  any  facts  I  might  want 
concerning  the  writer  himself  in  particular, 
and  about  society  in  general  in  Chicago. 
This  young  gentleman  surely  deserves  that 

253 


America  and  the  Americans 

I  give  his  name  here,  but  too  many  Ameri 
cans  have  been  kind  to  me  to  permit  of 
my  indulging  malice  toward  even  one  of 
them  knowingly. 

I  had  not  intended  to  describe  Chicago,  or 
Detroit,  or  Kansas  City  at  any  great  length, 
though  I  paid  short  visits  to  all  three.  A 
casual  tour  about  Chicago,  with  a  Chi 
cago  gentleman  and  his  wife,  left  a  vague 
impression  of  slaughter  -  houses,  cemete 
ries,  parks,  and  lake-front.  I  was  much  im 
pressed,  too,  by  the  strange  combination  of 
Pork  and  Plato  there.  My  hostess  attended 
twice  a  week  a  Plato  club,  and  the  winter  be 
fore,  so  she  told  me,  she  had  attended  a  sim 
ilar  class  in  Browning.  Her  husband,  on 
the  other  hand,  took  me  to  see,  as  possibly 
the  most  interesting  sight  in  the  city,  the 
Pork.  slaughter-houses  and  stock-yards.  I  wit 

nessed  a  procession  of  pigs  becoming  sau 
sages  at  the  rate  of  I  have  forgotten  how 
many  a  minute.  He  laughed  at  her  Plato, 
she  laughed  at  his  pigs.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  the  one  was  taken  no  more  seriously 
than  the  other. 

One-fifth  of  the  total  population  of  Illi- 

254 


Impressions  of  Chicago 


nois  is  made  up  of  Germans  and  Irish,  and 
in  Chicago  itself  more  than  two-thirds  of 
the  population  is  foreign-born.  This  state 
of  things  would  seem  to  offer  ample  food 
for  study  and  reflection  to  the  more  serious- 
minded  citizens. 

With  a  self-proclaimed  anarchist  as  Gov 
ernor  of  their  State,  and  riots  in  Chicago 
only  lately  that  required  the  federal  troops 
to  suppress  them,  one  would  imagine  that 
the  study  of  Plato  and  Browning,  and  the 
net-work  of  clubs  for  which  the  city  is 
notorious,  for  investigating  kindergarten 
methods,  for  promoting  the  rights  of  wom 
en,  for  the  study  of  pre-Raphaelite  art,  for 
the  study  of  the  history  of  Fiction,  for  col 
lecting  funds  for  excavations  in  Greece,  for 
the  study  of  the  pre-Shakespearian  drama 
tists,  and  many  more  topics  equally  unre 
lated  to  the  real  problems  of  the  city,  were 
not  to  the  point. 

Be  it  said,  to  my  shame,  that  never  be-  if  Plato 

fo-, .  ,  came  to 

re  at  a  dinner  have  I  conversed  with  a   Chicago! 

lady  on  the  subject  of  Plato.  I  believe 
Plato  kept  but  a  meagre  place  in  his  re 
public  for  women.  It  would,  no  doubt, 

255 


America  and  tbe  Americans 

surprise  him,  as  much  as  it  surprised  me,  to 
visit  this  city,  the  name  of  which  hitherto 
had  been  made  familiar  to  me  by  seeing  it 
on  tins  of  meat,  to  find  himself  served  up 
with  the  soup  at  his  first  dinner-party. 

One  charm,  at  least,  about  the  intel 
lectual  life  in  America  is  its  unexpected 
ness.  People  here  in  Chicago  are  not 
trammelled  by  centuries  of  training  and 
precedent.  We  Europeans  begin  with  the 
alphabet,  go  on  to  simple  words  of  one 
syllable,  then  on  from  primer  to  reader, 
and  begin  our  national  classics  with  La 
Fontaine,  and  so  on  through  a  regularly 
graded  intellectual  training,  step  by  step. 
But  here  in  Chicago  a  lady,  who  talked 
glibly  of  Plato,  surprised  me  by  saying 
that  she  did  not  know  an  English  poet 
named  Peacock,  and  thought  I  was  jok 
ing  when  I  told  her  that  his  full  name  was 
Thomas  Love  Peacock. 
A  prophet  The  only  sustained  bit  of  English  prose 

•not  without      ,          ,  r  /-,1  .  •, 

honour.        that  has  come  out  of  Chicago,  so  my  novel 
ist  friend  told  me,  is  a  little  book,  half  fic 
tion,  half  reminiscence,  of  Italian  life.     I 
asked  this  same  lady,  therefore,  if  she  had 
256 


Impressions  of  Chicago 


read  "The  Chevalier  of  Pensieri-Vani," 
and  she  had  never  heard  of  the  book.  Here 
is  another  illustration — alas  !  that  there  are 
so  many — of  the  superficial,  short-and-easy 
methods  here.  Culture !  Yes,  culture  is 
the  word  they  use. 

I  know  men  and  women  in  France,  in 
Russia,  in  Italy,  who  speak  and  read  half  a 
dozen  languages,  who  have  travelled  over 
all  Europe  and  much  of  the  East,  who 
know  and  have  learned  much  from  distin-  Culture 
guished  people  all  over  the  world,  who 
have  gone  through  the  hard  continental 
school  and  university  training,  and  who  do 
not  dream  that  anyone  thinks  them  men 
and  women  of  pre-eminent  culture. 

But  here,  God  bless  you  !  these  women 
who  only  just  know  how  to  write  their 
notes  of  invitation  and  their  letters  prop 
erly,  talk  of  culture  !  It  reminds  me  ot 
Boston,  of  Concord  again,  and  of  Plym 
outh,  where,  as  here,  the  side-issues  of  life, 
the  fringe,  the  beads,  the  ornaments  of  the 
intellectual  life  are  worn  tricked  out  on  the 
cheap  and  shabby  stuff  of  an  utterly  in 
adequate  preliminary  mental  drill. 

257 


America  and  the  Americans 

One  young  man  I  met  here,  a  professoi 

in  the  university,  who  turned  out  to  be  a 

One  scholar  distinguished  Greek  scholar  and  the  editor 

fit  Icust, 

of  an  erudite  book  on  the  American  Con 
stitution.  I  confided  to  him  my  impres 
sions  of  the  superficiality  of  much  of  this 
learning  and  reading  and  studying  by  short- 
and-easy  methods,  but  he  was  too  much 
the  gentle  scholar  himself  to  chide  others, 
though  I  learnt  later  that  he  has  written 
of  this  flimsy  pretentiousness  of  the  intel 
lectual  life  in  unmeasured  terms.  All  this 
study  and  reading  are  not  bad  ;  it  is  the 
choice  of  subjects  and  the  assumption  that 
when  one  has  a  little  superficial  knowledge 
of  the  great  classics,  one  is  therefore  an 
equal  of  those  who  have  endured  the  driU 
and  training  of  years  of  academic  life,  which 
is  mischievous. 

These  are  a  young  people  in  a  hurry, 
and  they  often  mistake  haste  for  swiftness. 
There  is  an  intellectual  ocean  of  difference 
between  knowing  things,  and  knowing 
about  them.  The  chief  value  of  knowledge 
is  the  training  gained  in  its  pursuit.  The 
Chicago  method  consists  in  a  kind  of  con- 

258 


impressions  of  Chicago 


viction  of  knowledge,  akin  to  the  mys 
tic's  conviction  of  righteousness,  or  the 
Calvinist's  conviction  of  sin,  and  they 
are  all  three  equally  harmless  and  equally 
useless. 

Chicago  is  the  metropolis  of  the  great 
middle  West,  an  enormous  territory  of 
vast  promise,  and  is  now  a  city  of  a 
million  inhabitants.  As  a  witty  gentle 
man  in  New  York  said  to  me,  they  have  Pursean 

..,.,,  .    .  T  i      sow's  ear. 

municipalized  the  prairies.  It  is  a  rough 
and  raw  civilization,  and  it  is  a  fatal  blun 
der  to  attempt  to  put  fine  French  fur 
niture-polish  on  rough  boards  before  they 
have  been  planed  and  smoothed  to  receive 
it. 

It  is  said  by  anthropological-  students 
who  have  investigated  the  subject  that 
certain  barbarous  races  are  weakened  and 
finally  exterminated  by  civilization.  It  is 
said,  too,  that  minds  accustomed  to  train 
ing  and  to  study  can  bear  training  as  minds 
of  less  cultured  ancestry  cannot.  Some 
times  I  think  that  the  enormous  increase  of 
wealth,  of  opportunity,  of  luxury,  in  such 
a  community,  say,  as  Chicago,  have  for  the 

259 


America  and  the  Americans 

moment  weakened  that  fortunate  growth 
of  the  men  and  women  to  whom  they  have 
come  in  the  largest  proportion. 

For  reasons  unnecessary  to  mention 
here,  I  was  obliged  to  spend  a  day  and  two 
nights  some  hundreds  of  miles  from  Chi 
cago,  in  a  rough  little  village.  I  met  there 
the  genuine  unwashed,  unabashed,  un- 
Tke  un-  affected  American  in  all  his  glory.  At  a 
American,  certain  so-called  "grocery-store,"  whither 
I  went  in  the  evening  to  find  a  notary,  I 
spent  some  two  hours.  During  those  two 
hours  I  heard  some  of  the  shrewdest  talk 
I  had  heard  during  my  entire  stay  in 
America. 

These  were  types  of  what  the  politicians 
call  "  the  plain  people."  I  began  to  think 
that  the  politicians  were  right.  I  forgot 
Newport,  I  forgot  Semitic  Saratoga,  I  for- 
A  ray  o/  got  Miss  U.  S.  Liberty,  embarrassing  the 
finical  foreigner  at  Bar  Harbor,  and  I 
began  to  see  the  real  backbone  of  this 
strange  American  life.  I  felt  quite  sure, 
when  I  left  that  expectorating  group  of 
natives  sitting  about  the  stove  in  that  gro 
cery-store,  that  no  politician,  no  theorist, 
260 


Impressions  of  Chicago 


no  socialist,  would  deceive  those  men  for 
any  great  length  of  time. 

I  had  a  similar  experience,  that  I  have 
not  noted  here,  both  in  Salem  and  in 
New  Bedford,  towns  in  Massachusetts,  and 
I  remember  now  that  I  was  much  im 
pressed  then  with  the  same  shrewdness, 
and  the  same  rugged  integrity  of  manner 
and  speech  there. 

Such  men  as  these  are  much  superior  to 
relatively  the  same  class  in  France,  in  Eng 
land,  or  in  Italy.  So  far  as  education  is  Rough 
concerned,  their  speech  and  their  allusions 
showed  that  they  had  little  academic  train 
ing  ;  but  they  thought  for  themselves,  and, 
what  is  better  and  more  profitable,  acted 
for  themselves,  and  this  had  evidently  given 
them  an  independence  and  sturdiness  that 
will  not  be  easily  shaken. 

I  did  my  business  in  one  case  with  a 
man  who  handled  his  pen  much  as  a  wom 
an  handles  a  gun,  but  who  needed  no  law 
yer  at  his  side  to  protect  him.  He  knew 
all  about  his  own  business,  and  a  good 
deal  besides,  which  it  had  been  well  for  me 
had  I  known,  too. 

261 


America  and  the  Americans 

They  tell  me  that  the  West  is  peopled 
with  just  such  men — that  the  same  is  true 
The  f  lain  of  New  England  and  the  Middle  States. 
They  give  little  heed  to  passing  discussions 
and  fleeting  theories,  but  when  the  real 
rub  comes  they  appear  at  the  front  in  start 
ling  numbers,  with  muskets  or  votes,  as 
occasion  requires.  I  by  no  means  wish  to 
imply  that  they  are  always  right,  but  they 
are  always  in  earnest ;  and  when  one  has 
devoted  much  of  his  time  to  the  gayer  side 
of  American  life,  this  background  of  ear 
nestness  appeals  to  one  as  all  the  more  im 
portant,  and  as  a  factor  in  this  nation  not 
to  be  overlooked. 

If  I  were  pioneering  a  party  of  foreign 
capitalists  through  this  country,  hoping  to 
persuade  them  to  leave  their  money  here,  I 
might  take  them  to  Newport,  and  perhaps 
to  Boston,  just  to  hear  English  properly 
spoken  ;  but  I  should  certainly  take  them 
to  the  seaboard  towns  of  Massachusetts  and 
Maine,  and  to  the  rough  villages  of  the 
Western  States,  to  let  them  see  the  real 
quality  of  the  great  bulk  of  the  American 
people. 

262 


impressions  of  Chicago 


As  for  me,  when  I  returned  to  Chicago 
from  my  visit  to  the  prairies,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  there  was  more  chance  for  Chicago  Hope  for 
than  I  had  thought,  when  I  first  saw  that   Chicag°' 
in  this  socialistic  foreign  population  many 
of  the  people  I  met  were  pretending  to  be 
serious   about   Browning,    Plato,   and    the 
pre-Raphaelite  poets. 

Somehow  dilettanteism  in  Chicago  seems 
out  of  place.  It  is  a  little  too  much  as 
though  the  coachman  should  turn  round 
on  the  box  to  tell  you  what  Ruskin  says 
about  sunsets,  or  the  laundress  turn  from 
the  tub  to  chat  about  the  chemistry  of  soap- 
bubbles.  Not  that  a  coachman  may  not 
enjoy  a  sunset,  and  a  laundress  wonder 
about  the  iridescence  of  a  soap-bubble,  but 
for  the  time  being  their  thoughts  should  be 
of  other  things. 

Pork,  not  Plato,  has  made  Chicago,  and 
Chicago  people  have  not  arrived  at  a  stage 
of  civilization  yet  where  they  can  with 
propriety  or  advantage  change  their  alle 
giance. 

One  other  feature  of  American  life  at 
tracted    my   attention    first    in    Chicago, 
263 


America  and  the  Americans 

though  I  found  that  it  was  common  in  the 
clubs  in  all  parts  of  America. 

We  were  sitting,  some  half  a  dozen  of 
us,  in  the  club,  when  another  member 
appeared  on  the  scene.  He  called  a  ser- 
vant,  said  to  him,  "  Take  the  orders  !  "  and 
potabmty.  then  turning  to  us  all,  said:  "  What'  11  ye 
have,  gentlemen  ?  ' '  Thus  this  young  man 
had  his  one  drink,  with  his  bill  multiplied 
by  six  or  seven.  This  practice  is  almost 
universal.  It  is  done  in  New  York  as  it 
is  done  here,  and  at  Kansas  City,  and 
everywhere  else  I  have  been.  "Take  the 
orders  !  "  and  "  What' 11  ye  have?  "  might 
well  be  emblazoned  on  the  club-crests  like 
' '  Ich  dicn, "  or  "  Non  sans  droict. ' '  They 
illustrate  the  hospitable  tendency  of  the 
people,  and  the  everywhere-prevailing  dis 
like  of  solitariness. 

It  is  of  no  consequence  on  these  oc 
casions  that  the  inviter  is  not  acquainted 
with  the  invitees.  He  includes  them  all 
in  his  generous  embrace.  He  invites  you 
to  partake  cf  potables  first,  and  makes  your 
acquaintance  afterward.  This  custom  leads 
to  an  unnecessary  multiplication  of  pota- 

264 


Impressions  of  Chicago 


lions,  perhaps,  but  is  an  easy  and  gracious 
way  of  introducing  one's  self,  or  of  re-intro 
ducing  one's  self  to  new-found  company. 

This  cheerful,  all-embracing  "What'll 
ye  have?"  sounds  in  my  ears  now,  when 
I  am  so  many  thousand  miles  away,  and  I 
smile  involuntarily  as  I  think  of  the  hap 
py-go-lucky,  prosperous,  and  genial  young 
heirs  of  a  mighty  nation's  wealth,  to  all  of 
whom  I  would  gladly  say,  as  so  many  of 
them  have  said  to  me  :  "  What' 11  ye  have  ?  " 

I  did  not  get  as  far  as  the  Pacific  coast, 
and  my  journeys  in  this  Western  country 
were  hastened  by  an  unexpected  order  to 
return  to  Paris.  But  I  am  not  sure  that 
the  communities  in  America  with  the  least 
assumption  of  polish  are  not,  after  all,  the 
most  interesting,  at  any  rate,  to  the  Euro 
pean.  There  is  a  great  difference  between 
newness  and  freshness.  The  East  seems  a  Newness 
bit  new,  but  the  West  is  still  fresh.  The  annef/re' 
one  has  the  awkwardness  of  the  novus  homo, 
the  other  the  awkwardness  of  a  sturdy  but 
growing  school-boy.  The  mistakes  of  the 
West  are  blunders  of  exuberance,  the  mis 
takes  of  the  East  are  the  blunders  of  self- 

265 


America  and  the  Americans 

repression.  The  one  does  not  care  at  all, 
the  other  cares  too  much. 

The  Western  cow-boy  and  the  Western 
farmer  seemed  to  me  to  be  rather  more 
genuine,  as  articles  of  American  manufact 
ure,  than  the  haw-hawing  Bostonian,  or 
the  New  Yorker  with  his  men-servants  in 
knee-breeches.  But  here  again  I  beg  to 
apologize  for  generalizations.  I  know  too 
many  dandies  whose  minds  and  muscles 
are  not  what  their  neck-cloths  and  boots 
and  gloves  would  seem  to  proclaim,  to 
The  cow-  make  off-hand  comparisons  between  the 
pandhthc  "  cow-puncher  "  and  the  "  dude,"  as  they 
call  them  here. 

During  the  late  war  between  the  North 
and  the  South,  they  tell  me,  the  colleges 
sent  as  fair  a  proportion  of  good  fighters  as 
the  lumber-camps;  and  the  shops  of  New 
York  and  Boston  as  worthy  representatives 
as  the  farms  and  the  prairies.  I  am  writing 
you  of  what  I  saw,  of  my  personal  impres 
sions.  An  instantaneous  photograph  of  a 
nation  is  no  more  a  history  or  a  prophecy 
than  the  photograph  of  an  individual  is  an 
analysis  of  his  character. 

266 


XX 

American  Newspapers 

a  greater  extent  than  in  any 
other  country,  the  newspapers 
of  America  are  read  and  talked 
about.  Some  of  the  most  en 
tertaining  Americans  one  meets,  or  hears 
of,  are  journalists.  It  would  be  impossi 
ble  to  leave  the  country,  after  studying  its 
journals  as  have  I,  without  a  few  words 
concerning  them. 

One  hears  so  much,  and  so  often,  of 
what  education  has  done,  and  will  do,  for 
the  masses  in  America,  that  one  comes  at 
last  to  ask  himself,  in  just  what,  then,  is 
this  so-often-vaunted  education  to  consist  ? 
First  of  all,  the  Americans  refer  you  to  their 
public  schools.  But  even  the  best  schools 
do  not  give  a  man  an  education,  much  less 
can  these  schools  do  so.  Experience,  read 
ing,  travel,  intercourse  with  other  men,  and 

267 


America  and  the  Americans 


education. 


daily  employment  of  one's  faculties,  these 
are  what  educate  a  man,  after  the  schools 
have  given  him  the  more  mechanical  in 
struments  of  education. 

The  Americans  are  such  voracious 
readers  of  their  own  newspapers,  that  the 
Newspaper  newspapers  must  be  taken  into  account  as 
an  important — not  to  say  the  chief — factor 
in  what  may  be  termed  the  secondary 
education  of  the  mass  of  the  people. 

Last  year  340,000  immigrants  arrived  in 
America ;  270,000  of  them  were  over  four 
teen  years  of  age,  and  of  these  last,  78,000 
could  neither  read  nor  write.  The  first 
printed  matter  that  these  people  will  read, 
when  they  can  read  at  all,  will  be  the 
newspapers.  What  they,  and  many,  very 
many,  other  Americans  read  almost  exclu 
sively  are  the  newspapers. 

To  a  republican  like  me,  interested  to 
see  what  this  greatest  of  republics  is  to 
become,  the  newspapers  were  a  constant 
source  of  study,  and,  I  may  add,  of  amaze 
ment.  A  newspaper  to  a  Frenchman  is, 
first  of  all,  a  literary  production,  well- 
planned  and  properly  balanced,  and  with 
268 


A  French 
newspaper 


American  Newspapers 


that  as  an  instrument,  it  gives  the  news, 
and  comments  thereon. 

Many  American  newspapers  have  no 
such  aim.  Most  of  them  read  as  though 
they  had  no  editor,  and  were  the  result  of 
shovelling  contributions  into  a  hat,  with 
out  a  head  in  it,  to  be  taken  out  and 
printed  in  such  order  and  sequence  as 
chance  may  dictate.  There  are,  of  course, 
exceptions  to  this.  One  prominent  daily  A  firstrate 
newspaper,  published  every  morning  in 
New  York,  which  shall  be  nameless,  is 
edited,  edited  in  fact  better  than  any  other 
sheet  of  the  kind  in  the  country,  and  as 
one  glances  over  it,  the  logical  mind  is 
satisfied  with  its  evident  sense  of  propor 
tion,  and  its  terse  expressions  and  clear  Eng 
lish.  Whether  one  admires  its  tone  always 
or  not,  there  is  daily  evidence  that  there 
are  brains  in  the  editorial  rooms,  while  many 
other  newspapers  give  evidence  only  of  a 
plentiful  supply  of  mud  in  those  quarters. 

It  would  be  a  colossal  task  to  enumerate 

and   to  criticise,  with  any  care,  even  the 

leading  American  newspapers.     Instead  of 

that,  and  out  of  regard  to  the  dangers  of 

269 


America  and  the  Americans 

prejudice  and  partiality,  I  have  chosen 
eight  newspapers  from  different  parts  of 
the  country,  and  carefully  summarized  their 
contents. 

The  majority  of  these  newspapers  have 
from  six  to  eight  columns  on  a  page,  and 
the  columns  are  from  seventeen  to  twenty- 
one  inches  in  length.  A  newspaper  with 
twelve  pages  of  seven  columns  each,  and 
each  column  twenty  inches  in  length,  would 
have  about  1,680  inches  of  printed  matter. 
With  a  measuring-tape  I  mapped  out  these 
eight  newspapers,  with  the  results  as  shown 
A  synopsis,  in  the  table.  The  synopsis  of  the  matter 
is,  of  necessity,  very  general,  and  no  doubt 
here  and  there  mistakes  were  made  in 
putting  such  and  such  matter  under  this 
or  the  other  heading.  Wherever  there 
was  any  doubt  in  my  own  mind  as  to 
whether  a  topic  came  under  the  head  of 
news  or  gossip,  to  the  newspaper  was  given 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  so  that  if  there  are 
errors  they  are  in  favor  of  the  newspaper. 
In  choosing  the  three  New  York  papers  for 
this  table  I  was  guided  by  an  eminent  law 
yer  of  New  York,  who  gave  me  what  he 
270 


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s  3 


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271 


America  and  the  Americans 

considered  one  good,  one  bad,  and  one  in 
different,  example,  my  own  choice  being 
subordinated  to  his.  In  adding  the  Paris 
Figaro  to  the  list,  I  offer  a  comparison  of 
orderliness,  economy,  and  succinctness,  as 
we  know  them  in  France. 

A  Parisian  likes  his  newspaper  to  read  it 
self  as  he  turns  its  pages;  the  American  is 
willing  to  delve,  and  seek,  and  flounder,  in 
order  to  get  the  little  that  one  really  cares 
to  know  from  day  to  day.  The  news 
paper  is  primarily  to  make  and  to  keep  a 
man  at  home  in  the  world,  with  as  little  cost 
of  time  and  labor,  as  may  be,  to  himself. 

The  average  American  newspaper  has  no 

such  aim  in  view.      It  flounders  about  in 

Lack  of       crime,  gossip,  accidents,  sensations,    per- 

precision.  ...  ~  .    . 

sonalities,  fiction,  pictures,  and  news,  ap 
parently  unable  to  decide  just  what  it  wants 
to  do.  One  of  the  eight  newspapers,  on 
the  particular  day  on  which  I  tabulated  its 
contents  for  this  purpose,  devoted  almost 
one-twelfth  of  its  total  contents  to  the 
weather ;  another  gave  considerably  more 
than  one-half  of  its  total  contents  to  crime, 
advertisements,  sport,  and  personal  gossip  ; 
272 


American  Newspapers 


another  gave  one-half  of  its  columns  to  ad 
vertisements  ;  another  was  all  too  evidently 
wavering  between  the  sensationalism  of  one 
extreme,  and  the  decency  and  orderliness  of 
its  evening  contemporary  in  the  same  city. 
In  all  but  one  of  them,  practically  every 
thing  was  padded  to  a  grotesque  extent, 
with  the  evident  intention  of  giving  their 
readers  the  impression  of  a  wealth  of  news 
for  their  money. 

The  newspapers  included  in  this  table 
were  chosen  quite  at  random  so  far  as  date 
is  concerned,  and  no  attempt  was  made 
to  point  a  moral  or  to  adorn  a  tale,  by 
choosing  an  issue  of  any  one  of  them  which 
should  illustrate  any  particular  point.  There 
they  are,  just  as  they  might  appear  on  any 
given  day  to  a  stranger  looking  them  over 
at  an  hotel  or  a  club, 

The  first  thing  one  notices  about  them 
is  their  utter  disregard  of  proportion  as 
compared  with  the  Figaro,  for  example. 
It  is  surely  impossible  that  on  any  given 
day  in  New  York,  accidents,  crime,  fire, 
and  business  failures  should  be,  omitting 
the  advertisements,  one-third  of  all  the 

273 


America  and  the  Americans 

news  and  comment,  as  appeared  to  be  the 
case  according  to  one  of  these  newspapers ; 
or  that  the  weather  could  possibly  offer  such 
a  fund  for  comment  as  to  swallow  up  one 
twentieth  of  a  large  morning  paper ;  or 
that  society  in  Chicago  should  suddenly  be 
come,  in  point  of  interest,  one-twentieth  of 
all  the  known  world  reached  by  telegraph. 

Were  I  to  make  these  statements  off 
book,  the  critic  would  appear,  as  is  so  often 
the  case,  with  his  "  foreign  exaggeration," 
"absurd  generalizations  from  rare  inci 
dents,"  and  so  on,  but,  fortunately,  the 
table  is  here,  and  from  it  each  one  may  de 
duce  his  own  conclusions.  My  own  con 
clusion  is  that  unless  one  happens  upon 
such  newspapers  as  the  Post,  the  Sun,  the 
Tribune,  in  New  York,  for  example,  he 
would  be  led  to  believe  that  the  population 
consisted  of  thugs,  fire-bugs,  and  bankrupts, 
who,  for  some  unaccountable  reason,  spent 
large  sums  on  advertising. 

Here  again  we  touch  upon  that  peculiar 

A  sa'ient      American    trait   of  itching    to   be   busy, 

coupled   with   a    disinclination    to    think 

hard  about  anything.      Far   too  much  is 

274 


American  Newspapers 


done,  far  too  little  is  thought  out.  The 
newspapers  mirror  accurately  enough,  most 
of  them,  this  state  of  mind.  One  can  al 
most  see  the  editor  of  one  of  these  news 
papers  "  fearfully  busy,"  with  no  time  to 
think — the  last  thing  he  cares  to  do,  or  is 
capable  of  doing  probably — surrounded  by 
telephones,  type-writers,  office-bells,  and 
stenographers,  fearful  lest  a  rival  should 
get  a  murder,  a  fire,  a  prize-fight,  or  a 
personal  scandal  that  he  wants;  padding 
news  that  he  promptly  contradicts  the  "Bein 
next  day,  and  pouring  forth  irrelevant,  again. 
inaccurate,  and  unwholesome  printed  mat 
ter  upon  a  constituency  of  readers  whom 
he  has  taught  to  be  sceptical,  frivolous,  and 
eager  for  another  sensation.  Ruin  stares 
him  in  the  face  if  his  readers  are  allowed 
to  think  or  to  study,  and  he  does  every 
thing  in  his  power  to  so  occupy  their 
minds  that  they  may  do  neither. 

It  is  sometimes  said,  by  the  ignorant,  that 
the  Catholic  Church  aims  to  keep  its  peo 
ple  in  ignorance  that  thus  they  may  be  the 
more  readily  ruled.  This  is  certainly  and 
obviously  true  of  certain  newspapers  of 

275 


America  and  the  Americans 

large  circulation  in  America.  Their  pub 
lic  must  necessarily  be  people  of  un 
trained  minds,  and  thus  they  are  doing 
an  awful  injury  to  the  State  in  retarding 
the  development  of  that  only  possible 
safeguard  of  a  republic — an  educated  suf 
frage. 

It  would  be  as  impossible  to  a  university- 
trained  man  to  read  continuously  certain 
of  these  newspapers,  as  to  interest  himself 
at  leisure  moments,  with  his  baby's  blocks 
or  nursery  rhymes.  And  yet  to  a  large 
extent  the  better  class  of  people  must  help 
to  support  these  newspapers,  since,  as  a 
rule,  they  are  the  moneyed  class.  They 
who  buy*  advertise  in  them,  and  to  some  extent  sub 
scribe  for  them  ;  for  the  mere  buying  of  a 
newspaper  for  a  penny,  by  even  an  enor 
mous  number  of  people,  will  not  make  its 
proprietors  very  rich. 

I  would  not  dare,  as  an  outsider,  to  set 
down  here  the  contemptuous  things  that 
are  said  about  the  worst  of  these  news 
papers  and  their  proprietors  by  practically 
every  respectable  American  one  meets.  But 
good -humor  and  carelessness  prevail  in  the 
276 


American  Newspapers 


end,  and  no  one  cares  to  take  the  step  be 
yond  denunciation. 

Trained,  travelled,  and  capable  men  are 
not  so  numerous  in  America  as  in  France, 
England,  and  Germany.  Those  who  have 
these  qualifications  are  either  making 
money  in  other  affairs,  or  they  are — a 
small  number  of  them — idlers,  what  the 
newspapers  call  "club-men!"  It  was 
well  known  in  Europe  that  Lord  Salisbury, 
now  England's  Prime  Minister,  contribu 
ted  regularly  in  years  gone  by  to  the  Sat 
urday  Review,  anonymously  of  course. 
Should  he  have  presented  himself  to  an 
American  editor  as  a  candidate  for  his 
staff,  not  one  in  ten  of  them  would  have  An 
known  enough  to  make  any  use  of  him, 
unless  it  were  to  advertise  the  fact  that 
"  Salisbury  now  hangs  up  his  coronet  and 
his  peer's  robes  on  the  back  of  our  office- 
door  !  "  Many  of  these  Fire-Failure-Prize 
fight  newspapers  do  not  want,  and  have 
no  place  for,  such  articles  as  the  man  who 
was  to  become  England's  Prime  Minister 
could  write.  They  do  not  want  men  who 
can  stop  and  think,  they  want  men  who 

277 


America  and  the  Americans 

can  run  and  jump ;  and  the  dirtier  the  pud 
dle  they  land  in,  the  better. 

Such  a  man  as  M.  de  Pressense,  or  such 
an  one  as  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  one  of  the 
greatest  living  authorities  on  extra-Eng 
land  subjects,  might  wait  in  vain  for  a  place 
on  the  staff  of  an  American  newspaper. 
The  American  editor  wants  something  that 
will  sell  to-morrow  morning,  and  not 
something  that  will  be  true  to-morrow, 
and  for  a  year  of  to-morrows.  The  large 
majority  of  Americans  do  not  know  good 
English  from  bad  —  though  they  have  a 
keen  appreciation  of  smart  writing — hence 
a  trained  and  clever  craftsman  with  the  pen 
is  of  no  more  value  than  the  average  re 
porter,  and  would  probably  cost  more. 

The  fact  that  domestic  politics  is  man 
aged  and  directed,  not  by  the  people,  but 
by  professional  politicians,  makes  it  un 
necessary — futile  when  they  do — for  the 
mass  of  the  people  to  learn  even  about  their 
own  political  questions  from  their  news 
papers.  So  far  as  foreign  politics  are  con 
cerned,  the  mass  of  Americans  take  little 
interest  in  them,  and  give  little  heed  to 
278 


American  Newspapers 


what  is  written  on  such  subjects.  Hence 
the  newspapers  are  not  looked  to  for  teach 
ing  of  a  direct  and  valuable  kind,  as  they 
are  in  other  countries. 

"What  is  going  on,"  is  a  familiar  head 
ing  in  many  newspapers,  and  to  tell  this 
luridly  or  decently,  and  no  matter  how  in 
accurately,  is  the  sole  aim  of  many  of  them. 
In  an  empire  or  a  monarchy  it  is  not,  per 
haps,  necessary  that  the  people  should  be 
students,  but  in  a  republic  it  is  the  prime 
necessity.  To  study  and  to  learn  requires 
training,  and  you  cannot  train  on  absinthe 
or  cocktails. 

The  lower-class  newspapers  accustom  the 
people  to  such  highly  seasoned  fare  that  the 
plain  diet  of  honest  thought  becomes  dis-  Da 
tasteful  to  them.  These  newspapers,  there-  dtet 
fore,  are  themselves  not  only  not  teaching 
anything  good,  but  they  are  making  it  more 
and  more  difficult  for  anyone  else  to  do  any 
teaching  that  shall  be  of  practical  value. 
The  repeated  failure  to  make  a  weekly 
paper,  say  like  the  London  Spectator,  a 
success  here,  and  the  difficulty  of  making 
even  a  sound  daily  newspaper  a  paying 
279 


America  and  the  Americans 

venture,  bear  witness  to  the  debauchery  of 
the  reading  public  by  the  sensational  press. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Americans  have 
an  illustrated  weekly  paper,  called,  I  be 
lieve,  Harper's  Weekly,  which  is  far  supe 
rior  to  anything  of  the  kind  in  Europe,  and 
their  beautifully  illustrated  monthly  mag- 
Firstrate  azines  have  no  rivals  even,  anywhere  in 
the  world.  These,  however,  do  not  depend 
for  their  popularity  upon  any  one  city,  or 
upon  any  one  section  of  the  country,  but 
are  subscribed  for,  and  read,  by  the  better 
classes  all  over  the  country.  In  this  con 
nection  it  is  fair  to  say,  too,  that  my  own 
favorable  conclusions  in  regard  to  such 
newspapers  as  the  Sun,  the  Post,  and  the 
Tribune,  in  New  York,  and  others  else 
where,  are  but  echoes  of  the  respectable 
opinion  there. 

I  plume  myself,  not  upon  having  made 
any  journalistic  discoveries,  but  upon  hav 
ing  used  a  European  measure  upon  Amer 
ican  newspapers,  only  to  find  that  its 
records  tally  with  what  Americans,  who 
are  best  able  to  judge,  say  themselves . 

Nothing  is  more  difficult  for  a  traveller 

280 


American  Newspapers 


than  to  say  what  is  good,  and  what  is  evil, 
in  a  stranger  nation.     But,  the  world  over, 
it  is  believed,  to  put  the  matter  broadly, 
that  courage  is  virtue,  and  cowardice  is 
vice.     Trace   back   the    pedigree   of  any 
virtue,  and  its  first  ancestor  was  courage. 
Trace  back  the  pedigree  of  any  vice,  and    The  ethics 
its  first  ancestor  was  cowardice.     Then  we 
must   all   admit — Frenchmen,  Americans, 
Englishmen,  and  Italians,  alike — that  stab 
bing  men  and  women  in  the  back ;  hurl 
ing  anonymous  insults  at  them — one  West 
ern   newspaper  calls  the  President  of  the 
United   States  a  wife-beater  —  publishing 
persistently  misleading  news  \  prying  into 
the  private  affairs  of  private  families ;  pub 
lishing  stolen  photographs  of  women  and 
children ;    listening    to,   and    circulating, 
character-destroying  stories  without  troub 
ling   to  investigate  or  to  hear   the   other 
side;   devoting  a  responsible  position   to 
the  exploitation  of  crime,  scandal,  and  un 
verified  rumors  is  cowardly,  and,  therefore, 
unworthy  of  a  gentleman. 

If  American  newspapers  are  in  the  habit 
of  doing  any  or  all  of  these  things,  we  can 

281 


America  and  the  Americans 

all  agree  that  they  are  bad,  without  going 
into  ethical  details,  that  lend  themselves  to 
discussion  and  argument.  That  some  of 
these  newspapers,  and  their  proprietors  and 
editors,  do  devote  themselves  to  the  print 
ing  of  such  matter,  no  one  here  denies. 

The  strange  code  of  morals  of  these  peo 
ple  is  thus  brought  more  than  ever  into 
prominence.  You  may  sit  at  dinner  near 
a  man  who,  a  few  hours  before,  saw  the 
proof  of  an  article  reciting  the  nasty  de 
tails  of  a  social  scandal,  and  who  ordered 
it  printed ;  while  if  this  same  man  told  the 
same  story  at  his  club,  steps  would  be  taken 
to  bring  about  his  resignation.  The  far 
ther  you  travel  into  the  interior,  the  more 
the  people  look  upon  their  newspapers  as 
privileged  social  and  moral  Juggernaut 
cars,  to  which  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to 
kneel  for  crushing. 

They  are  an  ingenious  people,  these 
Americans.  It  will  not  be  long  before 
A  sugges-  there  is  an  American  Association  for  Pro 
tection  against  the  Newspapers.  Members 
of  the  association  will  pay  so  much  each  year, 
and  the  association  will  undertake  in  return, 
282 


American  Newspapers 


with  eminent  lawyers  for  counsel  and  large 
wealth  behind  it,  to  protect  its  members 
from  anonymous  attack  of  a  malicious  or 
meddlesome  kind.  Then  will  cease  that 
most  incomprehensible  and  vulgar  feature 
of  American  life,  to  the  stranger,  namely, 
the  daily  publication  of  private  and  per 
sonal  details  of  home  and  social  life. 

No  doubt  many  Americans  love  to  see 
their  names  in  print,  but  they  are  usually 
those  who  deserve  no  such  attention,  and 
as  for  those  who  do  not,  life  is  sometimes 
made  intolerable  for  them. 

Even  from  the  low  commercial  stand-  A  comme 
point,  it  is  estimated  that  many  millions  of 
the  much-striven-for  dollars  are  now  ex 
pended  in  Europe  by  Americans,  who 
frankly  tell  you  that  they  have  been 
hounded  out  of  the  country  by  the  news 
papers.  They  have  committed  no  graver 
fault  than  to  be  the  possessors  of  large 
wealth,  but  the  newspapers  made  privacy 
impossible  to  them,  their  children,  or  even 
their  servants,  and  what  money  could  not 
buy  here,  they  have  gone  to  Europe  to  buy 
in  peace  there. 

283 


America  and  the  Americans 

Surely  the  wide-awake  Yankee  shop 
keeper  will  begin  to  see,  ere  long,  that  this 
class  of  newspaper  proprietor  is  making 
more  money  for  himself  than  he  is  making 
for  them.  Driving  away  the  rich  in  order 
to  feed  the  poor  on  sensations  is,  to  be  sure, 
a  form  of  philanthropy,  but  in  a  commer 
cial  country  it  is  a  form  of  charity  that  not 
only  begins,  but  stays,  at  home,  in  a  few 
newspaper  offices. 

This  freedom  of  the  press  has  its  advan 
tages,  perhaps,  in  one  particular  respect,  and 
that  is,  the  general  confidence  on  the  part 
of  the  public   that  their   newspapers    are 
T'if  buying  not,  as  a  rule,  bribed  for  financial  or  mer- 

of  news-  ,  111 

papers.  cantile  purposes ;  though  no  doubt  the 
weaker  provincial  newspapers  are  regular 
ly  subsidized  by  one  side  or  the  other  in 
every  great  political  campaign.  Some 
times,  when  great  questions  of  financial  or 
economic  policy  are  at  stake,  enormous 
sums  are  spent  in  this  way,  the  party  which 
does  the  subsidizing,  of  course,  holding  that 
such  expenditure  is  a  legitimate  education 
of  the  people. 

In  conclusion,  one  may  say  that  at  least 

284 


American  Newspapers 


the  American  newspaper  ries  hard  to  be 
entertaining  and  interesting,  and  often  suc 
ceeds.  So  far  as  many  of  their  editors  and 
contributors  are  concerned,  I  ought  to  be, 
and  certainly  shall  be,  always  hereafter  the 
first  to  maintain  that  they  are  not  only  in 
teresting  and  entertaining,  but  delightfully 
hospitable,  as  well.  Be  it  said  that  this  is 
true  of  many  other  departments  of  Ameri 
can  life.  The  men  are  better  than  their  The  men 

themselves. 

work.  Travellers  who  meet  and  know 
Americans,  are,  as  a  rule,  confident  of  the 
final  outcome  of  American  institutions. 
Those  who  judge  of  America  by  American 
work  alone,  or  by  American  diplomacy,  or 
by  Americans  idling  in  Europe,  are  more 
prone  to  pessimism. 


285 


XXI 

Conclusion 

T  is  no  easy  matter  to  sum  up 
one's  impressions  of  a  nation 
of  seventy  millions  of  people 
scattered  over   a   country  ex 
tending  from  the  Atlantic  to  the   Pacific 
Finally,        Ocean,  and  from  Canada  to  the  Gulf  of 

brethren  •'-.»-•  T  /v 

Mexico.  There  are  so  many  different  na- 
tionalities,  so  many  different  climates,  so 
many  different  interests,  that  one  finds  state 
ments  of  facts  for  one  section,  and  one 
class,  and  one  climate,  are  no  longer  fair 
statements  if  applied  to  another  section, 
another  climate,  another  class.  While  there 
is  social  snobbery  in  New  York,  and  intel 
lectual  snobbery  in  Boston,  and  painful 
superficiality  In  Chicagp,  there  is  nothing 
pf  the  kind  in  Bloody  Gulch,  or  Daven 
port,  or  New  Orleans,  or  Galveston. 

This  very  diversity  makes  the  country  in- 
{ejresting   to  the  traveller  who   goes  from 
286 


Conclusion 


place  to  place  merely  to  see  or  to  hear 
some  new  thing,  but,  contrariwise,  makes 
each  particular  locality  seem  monotonous 
and  provincial  to  the  European  accustomed 
to  have  all  climates,  all  classes,  all  interests 
centred  in  some  one  capital. 

Paris,  Berlin,  London,  Rome,  Buda- 
Pesth,  offer  a  far  greater  variety,  both  in 
tellectual  and  material,  than  any  one  city 
in  America ;  and  yet,  if  one  travels  about 
in  America,  one  finds  a  little  of  London, 
Paris,  Berlin,  Rome,  and  even  Buda-Pesth 
tucked  away  in  one  corner  or  another  of 
this  huge  country. 

Everything  that  one  says  may  be  true, 
and  still  everything  may  be  contradicted 
by  the  righteous  wrath  of  some  community 
where  such  and  such  a  state  of  things  does 
not  exist.  If  a  certain  condition  of  social  what  is 
affairs  exists  in  New  York,  and  the  traveller 
deems  that  American,  the  citizen  of  Daven 
port  bears  witness  that  it  does  not  exist 
there,  and  therefore  accuses  the  traveller  of 
knowing  nothing  of  America. 

Lynching  is  American  in  South  Carolina, 
but  it  is  not  American  in  Boston — at  least 


America  and  the  Americans 

not  since  1860  or  thereabouts;  to  go  to 
dinner,  or  to  the  theatre,  with  one's  back 
and  bosom  bare,  is  American  in  New  York, 
but  such  a  display  in  Davenport  would 
render  the  offender  liable  to  arrest,  or,  at 
any  rate,  certain  of  social  condemnation ; 
to  babble  of  Stendhal,  and  Rossetti,  and 
Browning  is  American  in  Chicago,  while  it 
would  be  simple  lunacy  in  Bloody  Gulch ; 
to  have  a  tub  and  a  clean  shirt  and  collar, 
to  shave,  and  to  dress  for  dinner  every  day, 
is  American  in  Washington,  and  excites  no 
remark,  but  to  do  those  same  things  in 
Valentine,  Nebraska,  would  not  only  excite 
remark,  but  probably  social  persecution ;  to 
have  a  valet,  and  to  wear  polished  shoes, 
and  to  brush  one's  hair  till  it  glistens,  and 
to  drive  a  tandem,  is  not  only  American, 
but  commonplace  enough  in  New  York, 
while  in  Sioux  City  such  behavior  would 
be  considered  not  only  un-American,  but 
anti -American  ;  to  wear  knickerbockers, 
parti -colored  stockings,  and  a  plaid  waist 
coat  excites  no  comment  in  the  country 
about  New  York,  but  in  Topeka  an  appari 
tion  of  that  kind  would  assemble  a  crowd, 
288 


Conclusion 


and  perhaps  necessitate  calling  in  the  po 
lice. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  the  Due  de  Lian- 
court,  and  De  Tocqueville,  and  Savarin, 
among  my  own  countrymen,  and  Mrs.  Foreign 
Trollope,  and  Dickens,  Lady  Stuart  Wort- 
ley,  Richard  Cobden,  Frederika  Bremer, 
Arnold,  W.  H.  Russell,  and  other  visitors 
from  "abroad"  to  America,  have  called 
down  upon  their  heads  sneers,  denuncia 
tion,  and  abuse.  No  doubt  they  all  told 
the  truth  about  what  they  saw,  and  told  it 
amiably,  and  with  the  best  intent  in  the 
world ;  but  this  is  the  land  of  contradic 
tions,  and  it  is  an  easy  task  for  the  native 
critic  to  pander  to  his  sensitive  fellow- 
citizens  by  showing  only  one  side  or  the 
other  of  the  picture  as  his  case  for  the  de 
fendant  requires. 

It  is  evident  then  that  I  cannot,  in  good 
faith,  offer  apologies  for  mistakes  to  Mr.  Difficult  to 
Smith,  in  Davenport,  and  to  Mr.  Jones,  in 
Bloody  Gulch,  when  to  Mr.  Knicker 
bocker,  in  New  York,  and  to  Mr.  May 
flower,  in  Boston,  they  are  not  mistakes  at 
all ;  or  to  Mr.  Knickerbocker  and  to  Mr. 


America  and  the  Americans 

Mayflower  for  mistakes  which  to  Mr. 
Smith  and  to  Mr.  Jones  are  not  mistakes. 
I  must  take  my  chance  with  other  visitors 
to  America,  should  American  critics  deem 
my  friendly  and  fraternal  chronicle  worthy 
of  their  notice  at  all. 

If  I  were  asked  to  outline  in  a  few  para- 
A  SUM-  graphs  the  fundamental  differences  between 
this  new  civilization  and  the  older  civili 
zations  of  Europe,  I  should  phrase  the  mat 
ter  as  follows :  First,  there  is  a  strange 
exclusion  of  the  more  cultivated  classes 
from  even  a  proportionate  share  of  author 
ity  and  responsibility  in  the  governing 
machinery.  The  best  men  do  not  rule  in 
domestic,  nor  guide  in  foreign,  politics. 
They  may  do  so  indirectly,  but  they  do 
not  appear  directly.  This  condition  of 
affairs  explains  the  rather  happy-go-lucky 
political  methods  in  vogue,  and  at  the  same 
time  explains  the  fact  that  social  life, — the 
polite  world, — strikes  the  foreigner  as  be 
ing  so  unreal,  so  ineffective,  so  monotonous, 
so  detached  from  great  issues. 

In  the  old  Greek  world  a  man  was  only 
a  citizen  when  he  was  a  politician ;  to  the 
290 


Conclusion 


foreigner  this  democracy  seems  to  require 
for  stability,  that  every  gentleman  should 
be  a  politician,  and  every  politician  a  gen 
tleman,  but  no  honest  traveller  can  say  that 
such  is  the  actual  situation. 

Second,  there  is  undoubtedly  social  dis 
content  in  this  new  country,  as  there  is  in  Discontent 
Europe.  In  Europe,  however,  this  discon-  philosophy. 
tent  poses  at  least  as  a  philosophy,  in  some 
places  even  as  a  religion,  and  dignifies  its 
vagaries  under  the  various  sub-titles  of  social 
ism.  Here  the  social  discontent  is,  mainly, 
outspoken  and  vulgar  jealousy.  The  result 
is  what  I  have  noted  elsewhere,  the  fact 
that  classes  are  farther  apart,  less  in  touch 
with  one  another  here,  than  in  Europe. 
This  seems  at  first  sight  improbable,  till  one 
remembers  that  good-fellowship  and  even 
friendship  may  exist  in  spite  of  conflicting 
opinions,  but  never  in  spite  of  distrust  and 
jealousy,  particularly  jealousy  of  this  sordid 
kind. 

This  aloofness  on  the  part  of  the  polite 

and  the  cultured,  and  this  undisguised  and 

untempered  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  less 

fortunate  classes,  are  salient  characteristics 

291 


America  and  the  Americans 

of  the  life  here,  life,  that  is,  as  it  would  be 
looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
foreign  student.  All  the  details,  anec 
dotes,  illustrations,  and  comments  in  the 
foregoing  pages  may  be  traced  more  or  less 
directly  to  these  larger  considerations  just 
named. 

I  like  America  and  the  Americans  so 
much ;  they  have  been  so  hospitable,  so 
generous,  and  so  friendly  to  me ;  their 
country  is  so  evidently  prosperous,  I  can 
not  fancy  that  in  these  journal  pages  I 
Analogy  have  passed  criticisms  unworthy  of  them 
or  of  me.  If  I  have  done  that,  then  I  beg 
here  and  now  to  apologize  \  certainly  that  is 
a  mistake,  not  only  as  against  New  York 
but  as  against  Bloody  Gulch,  not  only  as 
against  New  Orleans  but  as  against  the 
most  northern  community  in  Oregon. 

Of  the  one  triumph  most  desired,  I  can 
not,  in  any  event,  whether  critics  be  kind 
or  harsh,  be  deprived.  The  lady  for 
whom  the  journal  was  first  undertaken  en 
joyed  reading  the  manuscript,  and  thought 
the  Americans  must  be  a  "curious  and 
interesting  people;  " — she  may,  alas,  have 
292 


in  advance. 


Conclusion 


read  it  hastily — none  the  less  my  task  and 
the  impression  that  I  wished  on  the  whole 
to  produce  were  both  accepted  as  they 
were  meant.  Hence : 

"  All  is  well  ended,  if  this  suit  be  won, 
That  you  express  content." 


293 


J 


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